The Hospital for the Mind opened in Coquitlam in 1913. At one point, in the 1950s, a peak population of more than 5,500 patients lived there under the sort of institutionalized mental-health care that later fell out of favour in North America.

The number of patients at Riverview, as the grounds were later renamed, subsequently declined and the complex was finally declared closed in 2012.

Three years later, the province has unveiled plans to spend $175 million to redevelop the 91-hectare property as a reimagined health centre designed specifically for people with a severe mental illness or substance-use issues.

In a December 22 telephone interview, Vision Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang—a member of the Mayor’s Task Force on Mental Health and Addictions—noted that although the plan provides for 143 beds for mental-health care, most of those will replace existing beds.

“It is mostly a relocation,” Jang cautioned. But he was quick to add that he is “pretty happy” about the proposal. Jang explained that he’s hopeful the complex will offer new options for people who struggle with both a mental illness and an addiction issue. (That’s a group for which the City of Vancouver has repeatedly requested the province provide more resources. According to a 2014 Vancouver Coastal Health discussion paper, there could be as many as 2,000 people who fall into that category living in the Downtown Eastside alone.)

Dr. John Higenbottam is a clinical psychologist with UBC’s faculty of medicine and the author of a June 2014 report titled “Into the Future: The Coquitlam Health Campus”. That document makes the case for revitalized mental-health services at Riverview similar to what the province proposed on December 17.

“I would have liked to have seen more beds in there,” Higenbottam told the Straight by phone. “But it is a good start.”

He said he likes the inclusion of market-rate housing in the plans, where for the first time large numbers of people who do not struggle with a mental illness will also live on the Riverview grounds.

“Bringing the community to Riverview rather than having it geographically isolated from the community, I think there are some real benefits in this,” Higenbottam explained. He emphasized, however, that profits should not be the primary motive for including market-rate housing in the plans.

“If the main motive is to get the money to pay for all this, I think that is a questionable way to go,” he said.