These lands surrounding Oak Care Centre are under redevelopment, with some completed buildings, some underway, and more to come. This redevelopment is an opportunity for dialogue about inclusive communities for people with disabilities. How can the redevelopment support current and future people with disabilities in striving for optimal health, quality of life, and maximum independence? How can this be a space that is inclusive both functionally and socially?
The Oak-Dogwood site stretches from Cambie St to Heather St, West 57th to West 59th Avenues. Oak Care Centre and Dogwood Lodge were the two buildings, together housing around 200-300 people. Once the redevelopment of these lands are complete, around 5000 people are expected to live here.
Oak Care Centre has undergone many changes, and more are on the horizon but so far, no one knows when it will impact us. We know that eventually this whole building will be demolished, but it could be 5, 10, 20, up to 30 years. Oak Care Centre’s building now houses several programs, whereas it previously was home to one large group of residents, from opening in 1952 until OCC residents started moving out in the Summer of 2022.
The first group of OCC residents to move out were 44 individuals who chose from among several housing layouts – 4-bedroom units, 6 bedroom units and individual apartments built in the Cambie Gardens towers – the first new buildings completed in this redevelopment. Those housing units are a community living model, where residents are supported by CONNECT, a care provider. These moves started in the Summer of 2022 and continued for many months.
The next group of 23 residents moved out in the Winter of 2023/2024 to the newly built Dogwood Care Centre – those who chose a more traditional long term care model, managed by VCH. The new long term care building houses a total of 150 residents, 23 were former OCC residents, including 10 who moved to a ventilator-specific housing unit. while individuals on ventilators can and do thrive living in their own home in the community, some prefer the long term care model. Models of care and housing have pros and cons, depending on what is important to the individual.
The current OCC census is 47 adults of all ages, living in a long term care model of care, spread across 3 neighbourhood wards. While for years, residents shared rooms, now all but two residents have private bedrooms.
The other 3 arms of this building (formerly Wards 1, 4 and 5) have since been utilized by VCH for various other programs – one is a long term program aimed at supporting folks with ABI, another is a short term withdrawal program, and the third is a short term interim supported housing program managed by Lookout Housing.
For decades Oak Care Centre (OCC) was situated on 19 acres of green space. In 2009 urban community gardening group Farmers on 57th developed growing and gathering spaces on some of the lawns, continuing to operate until present day, now as non-profit society. The future development includes an urban farming space so this amenity can remain, providing accessible gardening, therapeutic gardening programs and community access to fresh locally grown food and flowers.
Planning for this redevelopment engaged the public and residents of Oak Care Centre and Dogwood Lodge around 2010.
To ensure residents’ voices were heard during the redevelopment planning, the Pearson Residents’ Redevelopment Group (PRRG) was formed in 2012. Oak Care Centre was formerly named George Pearson Centre, from 1952-2025. It was renamed due to to Pearson’s involvement in the mistreatment of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s.
The idea was that PRRG would help communicate between key decision makers and residents. The PRRG met regularly in the initial stages of redevelopment planning in 2012 and 2013.
In August 2016, the GPC Resident Council asked VCH to re-engage with residents directly. The result was an Engagement process that ran from Feb 2017-June 2017. Two reports and an FAQ were created from this process:
- Part-1-Housing-Pearson_resident_engagement_report
- GPC-FAQ-05-May-11-Final
- Part-2-Care-Models-Pearson_resident_engagement_report
- GPC-FAQ-June-2017
Links to earlier publications: