To the editor:
Re: "Employment centre coming to Downtown Eastside," Dec. 28.
As you reported, the Open Door Group is preparing to test the B.C. Ministry of Social Development's new "business model" for employment services in the area. As a consequence, successful, established and cost-effective non profit programs (Pathways, PEERS and others) working with some of the most marginalized people in Canada will close their doors.
Pathways was created nine years ago because several levels of government and the community recognized that cookie-cutter models of service delivery for the chronically unemployed residents of the neighbourhood didn't work. Pathways is a low-barrier access point for people wanting to get to work. In the past three years alone, 4,774 members of Pathways Information Centre met with experienced staff and were assisted through referrals and direct services on their road to employment.
The ministry's new standardized "business model" doesn't address the needs of the Downtown Eastside and those with limited short-term potential for employment will not be served. The loss of effective, neighbourhood sensitive, employment services in the inner city will cost taxpayers enormously in terms of increased health care demands, criminal justice costs, and workers not being able to get off welfare.
Wouldn't it make sense for the ministry to continue funding established and cost effective programs to ensure that the vulnerable not fall through the cracks in the sidewalk at Main and Hastings?
Carol Madsen,
Director, Pathways Information Centre
