I hereby petition the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to immediately open the PHS Lifeskills Centre 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Over 3500 members of this community rely on The Lifeskills Centre with an average of 800 visits per day. The Lifeskills Centre, offers a unique environment to the community providing services such as daily hot meals, respite, community meetings and events, group support meetings, advocacy/referrals, laundry, showers, vocational training, computer /internet access, long distance phone, and a womens shelter at night. Despite the continued increase in the number of members, the number of daily visits and the increased number of and variety of services, the Lifeskills Centre has operated on the same budget with the same number of staff since it opened in 2002. The Health Contact Centre, which provides similar services to a smaller population, receives five times the amount of funding as The Lifeskills Centre. Since the Health Contact Centre has been shut down, it had brought into focus the need to redirect funding to expand such essential services as the Supervised Injection Site, the Washington Needle exchange, and The Lifeskills Centre to remain open 24 hours a day. With increased funding we will be in a position to deliver existing services both day and night, expanding to include other essential services such as access to health professionals and full time advocacy to address the immediate needs of, health, employment, welfare, housing, and education.
We the following, kindly ask that the Vancouver Coastal Health authority redistribute funds fairly between these respective service providers to reflect and meet the communitys needs.