Photo Credit: PICS Society
So we started to outfit the building shell at 82nd Avenue, and
124th Street. We operated out of there for over 15 years,
buying the unit next to us so we could grow. Twenty years
ago we opened an office in Vancouver to service the popu-
lation there. anyone else who wanted to create another society. Nobody
wanted to take that on.
From a staff of one, me, we went from three to eleven by
1987. PICS now has 150 staff, including 10 people at Pace
Canada College, 17 staff in Vancouver and about 45 people
working in the senior’s housing. Another advantage was that I put in the infrastructure for
assisted living because of the need for Culturally Sensitive
Assisted Living, where old people could enjoy the food that
they were used to in their Indian culture. These people were
very unhappy with other facilities that don’t provide the food
they’ve known all their lives. Another bonus is that our staff is
bilingual and able to communicate with people in their own
language. This has produced a very high level of satisfaction
such that in the Fraser Region, our house came in number
one in this category last year.
We outgrew our 82nd Avenue location a few years ago and
relocated to our current building on 80th Avenue which
would house everyone.
Seniors Housing
In 1998 we recognized the need for seniors housing. We
found people sleeping in their cars, farm workers who didn’t
have any money, so we purchased two acres of land at 121
St and 75A Avenue with a one-thousand dollar down pay-
ment, not knowing how we were going to pay. We took a
great risk. At that time, Ujjal Dosanjh was the NDP Premier,
so I lobbied him and received funding for this supportive
housing. When the new Campbell government was elect-
ed some people said the new government shouldn’t give
us money, but we were already digging the ground. While
the government was gettin