Steve Schroller jumps out of the tall pickup truck, his hiking boots thumping against the pavement.

Low, slanted sunlight streaks through the high trees in Lynn Canyon and the park is quiet on this July morning, the weekend crowds returned to their Tuesday routines.

Schroller relishes the peace and quiet. Stomping to a tool shed, he unlocks the door and enters, returning to the light with a plastic bucket and garbage arm gripper.

“I’ve seen it all, McDonald’s containers — seen it. Coffee, like coffee cups — seen it,” he says, before heading across the suspension bridge and down the trails in his routine patrol for litter. “On a weekend, like a Saturday, it’s crazy here.”

Schroller, 27, is a park caretaker for the District of North Vancouver, working in Lynn Canyon Park.

He is also part of a group of semi-independent young adults with special needs looking for a home together on the North Shore.

Organized by their parents, Housing for Young Adults with Disabilities (HYAD) got one step closer to realizing its goals Monday night when City of North Vancouver Council voted unanimously to move a development application at 2151 Lonsdale Ave. — which their proposed 16-unit building is included in — to a public hearing.

FINDING EACH OTHER

It started five years ago when a handful of families connected at the North Shore ConneXions Society.

They all had children with special needs — autism, Down syndrome, or moderate brain damage — and they all had the same problem.

They were taking care of their children now, but what would happen to the kids when the parents were too old to be caretakers anymore?

“There was a common concern of what’s going to happen down the line to our kids?” recalls Clayton Knowlton, one of the participating parents.

None of the parents wanted to place their children in a group home or into private care, and more importantly, they didn’t want their kids taken off the North Shore where they’d already established lives and routines.

“Our kids are all semi-independent,” Knowlton says.

They know the bus routes in town. They hold jobs here as park caretakers, gas station attendants, grocery clerks. Two HYAD members also run their own coffee and snack kiosk at a recreation centre, while another is in school at Vancouver Community College.

They have volunteer positions too, and weekly practices for the Special Olympics or exercise groups they belong to.

To keep their kids here, Knowlton and the other parents committed to forming a community for their children in the form of a co-op style housing complex with a live-in manager to be their advocate, caretaker and guide when their parents are no longer capable.

Each resident will have their own one-bedroom apartment with small kitchen, while a communal area allows them to congregate. The live-in manager will assist the residents with their individual needs while helping to maintain their independence.

To help make the dream happen, HYAD member families have been fundraising for the last few years, and committing their own funds to the project.

“This is one of the things that make it unique, the families are kicking in a large portion of money,” Knowlton says.

So far the parents have combined to raise more than $600,000. The project they’ve envisioned is estimated to cost nearly $3 million.

THE APPLICATION

The HYAD complex is part of a larger development taking over the former grounds of Lonsdale Elementary.

The land eventually will be home to a new school district administration building, a 234-unit Polygon development, and the HYAD building.

On Monday, Oct. 26, City of North Vancouver council formally received the modified development application that’s been two years in the making.

The proposal is five buildings in total on the 3.4 acre site — a five-storey school district building housing the administration office and the Artists-for-Kids Gallery, two five-storey and one four-storey apartment buildings, and the three-storey HYAD complex.

“There’s been substantial work done on this ... it’s appropriate to move this forward (to a public hearing),” Coun. Craig Keating said.

While all councillors voted to move to a public hearing, Coun. Pam Bookham voiced concerns about the plan’s decision to go with wood buildings, since the new provincial regulation changes allowing five and six-storey wood frame buildings to jump-start the economy.

“I want to support this as well but the issue of the five storey (wood buildings) is still an issue for me,” Bookham said, adding she would like to hear the fire department speak to the matter about public safety. “If they (firefighters) are comfortable, I will follow their expertise in this matter.”

The public hearing is set for Nov. 16.

Steve Schroller Daniel Pi

A PLACE OF HIS OWN

Schroller has filled his plastic bucket with discarded drink containers and food wrappers.

“People try to hide this stuff and they think I won’t find it,” he says, shaking his head as he heads down the boardwalk in search of a dumpster.

“But I’ll find it,” he vows.

He pauses by the parking lot, looks into the woods then crashes through the bush.

A moment later he returns, several glass beer bottles in the bucket while waving a wet and flopping cardboard case.

“I’m not surprised there are black bears here,” he says, pointing into the garbage bucket now with discarded apple cores and banana peels.

An avid outdoorsman, Schroller snowboards and rides a motor bike — “A 400cc,” he boasts — and has spent time in grizzly country camping with his dad.

Looking around him in Lynn Canyon Park, he declares, “It’s pristine.”

It’s a reason Schroller would like to stay on the North Shore too, to be close to the life he’s known and the community where he’s built his life around.

It’s important he stay on the North Shore, he says, because this is where he grew up, and more importantly, this is where he works.

There’s a independent streak in him, and Schroller is looking forward to exerting it in the proposed living arrangements.

He’d have his own apartment, but also the option to meet his fellow HYAD neighbours in a communal kitchen. They’d have to work together, like a council, to determine what activities they do as a group or individually, when to meet together for meals or what movies to watch together.

“I think he’s definitely very anxious to move on,” Schroller’s mother Barbara adds. “To do that step like any other young person at that age would do.”

dpi@northshoreoutlook.com

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