DOUGLAS COLLEGE
ARCHIVES
S
United Way :
NEIGHBOURHOOD HOUSES RECEIVE CRIME PREVENTION AWARD And Our Partner, The Red Cross

 

2

The Association of Neighbourhood Houses of Greater Vancouver, has received
a 1985 Crime Prevention Award from Solicitor General Perrin Beatty.

The Award, marking National Crime Prevention Week, recognizes specific
innovative crime prevention programs provided by this United Way Member
Agency in Vancouver, Burnaby and Crescent Beach.

Programs from five of the eight Neighbourhood Houses, plus its Rehabilitation
and Counselling Services unit were selected to represent the overall work of

the Agency.

In the West End, Gordon Neighbourhood House runs the Davie Street Youth
Project and the tandem Lo-Cost Labour Program. This two-fold service

began five years ago to help young people move away from street living.
They are contacted “on the street " and encouraged to become involved in
counselling, tutoring, recreation activities and job skill training. About
100 young people are helped each year, many joining in the Lo-Cost Labour
program and working in the community to earn their first "real" paycheques.
Sixty per cent of youth in this Gordon House program have been involved in
previous offences. The agency reports an 80% success rate in youth leaving
street life.

Kitsilano Neighbourhood House runs an Adult Diversion program for people

aged 17 to 70. [It is the only such service in British Columbia, and over its
four year operation has been assessed the most successful in Canada. Between
150-200 first offenders are referred to Kits House for assessment, counselling
and involvement in community work. The Vancouver Regional Office of the
Corrections Branch says that program participants have a very low "return to
Crime" rate. Kits House staff and volunteers also find that many of the
younger people graduating from the program later join other House activities
to become positively involved in local community life.

The Association of Neighbourhood Houses began serving Greater Vancouver in
1894 evolving a specific mandate to enhance the quality of family and
neighbourhood life as different areas of the city developed their own
characteristics. It is one of the 88 United Way Member Agencies for whom

the $10.2 million in 1985 was raised.