Few tears will be shed over the resignation of Rev. Ric Matthews, the senior minister at the Downtown Eastside's First United Church. City hall bureaucrats and politicians have been in an escalating war with Matthews for years over how he was running the church's controversial homeless shelter.
Matthews came to his work in 麻豆传媒映画in 2007. Conflict with the city began from the moment, in 2008, that Matthews opened the shelter at Hastings and Gore.
It was one of the four HEAT projects started early on in Mayor Gregor Robertson's administration intended to reduce the numbers of street homeless. They were funded by the provincial government and designed as low-barrier shelters which, unlike exiting shelters, allowed folks in with their pets and their shopping carts and didn't insist their clients had to be clean of drugs and sober.
Matthews' idea of how to run a shelter, however, was at odds with all the agencies involved in overseeing their administration. Basically, what they saw as a regulated facility, Matthews and his staff saw as a "refuge" that refused no one.
Playing a seasonally appropriate Christ card, Matthews is now saying that under the conditions demanded by the city and the rest "could any faith institution house Mary and Joseph."
But conditions in that long-ago Bethlehem stable seemed idyllic compared with Matthews' shelter.
There was no attempt to register those who used the facility and the 240 occupancy limit was frequently exceeded, at times by as many as 100.
The failure of staff to maintain control inside the shelter led to hundreds of calls for police assistance to stop violent incidents.
The open door policy also meant that known sexual predators were able to enter. Last year alone 麻豆传媒映画police reported that half a dozen sexual assaults had taken place in the shelter.
In February, a coalition of women's organizations in the Downtown Eastside demanded quick action to end conditions that allowed these assaults. They also wanted a 24-hour women-only shelter.
In the meantime the city, the police and the fire department along with the provincial government continued to keep up the pressure to bring the shelter into compliance with health and safety standards as well as separated facilities for women.
When the city offered to help out Matthews in the operation of the facility by contracting with professionals to run the shelter, he refused.
None of this was lost on the United Church board. In December, an internal board email surfaced from one board member-David Ewart-to his colleagues, expressing frustration at failure of Matthews and his assistant to comply: they "have both known for two months-since early September-that the city was not going to allow them to continue to operate in violation of the fire safety code. The city stressed the importance of putting a plan in place BEFORE the first cold weather started and offered suggestions as to how to bring First's occupancy within safe limits."
It was clear to the board they were at risk of losing their insurance. As well, their lawyers informed them could be held personally liable as board members for what was going on.
Then earlier this month the city's fire department moved to enforce the occupancy limits and on that first night 27 people were excluded from the shelter.
Matthews took aim at the city and Robertson used the occasion to again demand the minister responsible, Rich Coleman, fund more shelter spaces. While Coleman finally did come up with more dough and announced a women-only shelter, he expressed an ongoing determination to shut down Matthews' shelter. That will happen next spring.
By then, the city says, many of the shelter occupants will be housed elsewhere.
And now that Matthews is gone and some order is being restored, many folks are breathing a sigh of relief.
