Community Outreach Centre concerns dominate Charlottetown meeting once again 

Krystal Pirch says it's no longer safe to send her children out to play in her neighborhood in the eastern end of Charlottetown.

Pirch was one of about 150 people to take part in a meeting, organized by concerned residents of the area, on the future of the Community Outreach Centre on Park Street in the capital city. 

"My children, they're scared, they're four and five, they used to play out in the front yard," Pirch said during the meeting at the Eastlink Centre in Charlottetown.  

"They don't anymore because of the needles — we're scared — the crack pipes that were thrown."

Earlier this year, the provincial government moved the Community Outreach Centre from Euston Street to Park Street, where the province also operates an overnight emergency shelter.

Both facilities were set up using modular housing units, and the province has said both are temporary solutions while it waits for delivery of a strategy from consultant Carlene Donnelly on a system of care for vulnerable Islanders. 

The P.E.I. government provides funding to a third party, the Adventure Group, to run the centre.

The city issued temporary one-year variances to allow the province to operate its facilities at Park Street. The first of those variances, for the shelter, expires in December. 

Earlier this month, P.E.I. Housing Minister Steven Myers said the centre will stay at Park Street whether Charlottetown councillors like it or not, saying: "It is not moving, and that's the end of the story."

But Charlottetown Mayor Philip Brown said the housing minister needs to be patient and wait for the city's decision on approving the province's request for a permanent zoning amendment that would allow the centre and shelter to stay put.

Chalen MacPhail also lives in the area. He said he used to feel safe walking in his neighbourhood, but not anymore. 

"People are running away from it. A few of my neighbours have put their place up for rent, a few more have just moved out and put their place up for sale entirely," MacPhail said in an interview. 

"I would fully support this place if it did what it said it was going to do, if the people going there actually got the help they needed."

But a couple of people at the meeting, who are actually clients of the Community Outreach Centre, said they did get the help they needed.