Provincial
Dear Dr. Gary Kahne:
Thank you for your correspondence of January 20, 2025, addressed to the Honourable Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, regarding treatment and rehabilitation for people experiencing homelessness and substance use disorders. As Executive Director, Homelessness and Supportive Housing Policy Branch, I am able to respond.
First, I would like to thank you for your interest in addressing ongoing challenges related to homelessness, addiction and mental health, and share your suggestions for improving our support systems to best serve British Columbians in need.
In response to your letter, I would like to share information regarding important initiatives that have recently been implemented or are underway.
Our comprehensive Homelessness Plan for the Province, Belonging in BC, outlines a range of immediate and longer-term efforts to help thousands of people maintain and access housing and supports. Through this plan, the Province is working with Indigenous partners, people with lived experience of homelessness, local governments, service providers and other partners to create a province where everyone has a community and a place to call home. To read the Belonging in BC plan, please visit:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/BelongingStrategy.pdf
A core initiative of Belonging in BC is the implementation of the Integrated Support Framework, which is a new model to help coordinate and streamline the delivery of health and social supports to people who are unhoused or at risk of losing their housing. Full details are available here:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/housing-and-tenancy/social-housing/supportive-housing/isf_-_integrated_support_framework_report_web_fnl.pdf
British Columbia is also investing in complex-care housing to address the needs of people who have significant mental health, addictions, or concurrent issues, as well as functional needs like acquired brain injuries that are often left to experience homelessness or at risk of eviction. This program provides an enhanced level of health, cultural and social supports to residents, for as long as they need it. More information is available here:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/managing-your-health/mental-health-substance-use/complex-care-housing
With regard to employment training and placement services, I can share information about services currently provided through the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. The ministry’s Employment and Labour Market Services Division (ELMSD) is working to improve equity in access to employment opportunities and support the well-being for some of BC’s most vulnerable people, by recognizing the broad range of activities that boost a person’s employability:
- As a part of the ministry’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, ELMSD committed a $3.8 million annual investment for three years, to pilot a low barrier, outreach-based employment service in select communities across BC, including Victoria
- Community-based Employment Services (CBES) supports a network of community-based organizations to provide flexible, low-barrier employment services for people experiencing complex barriers to employment such as those related to mental health, homelessness, and substance use
- The CBES provider in Victoria, Beacon Community Services, offers services and supports that include life skills development, short-term training, employability capacity-building, food supports, counselling, work or volunteer placements, and connection to community partners for additional wraparound support services
- Expected short- and medium-term outcomes for participants include:
- Increased levels of self-confidence, community attachment, and/or employment readiness;
- Exposure to work experience; and
- Increased skill development through job-related training
- Expected long-term service learning includes:
- Identification of better ways for helping people with complex needs to access employment supports and for measuring outcomes; and
- Identification of emerging practices which will support modernization of future employment services
- For more information on these services, please contact Supreeti Bhalla, Director, Inclusive Employment Initiatives, Community and Employer Initiatives Branch/Employment and Labour Market Services Division/Ministry of Social Development & Poverty Reduction, at 604-690-1560.
Thank you, again, for writing and for your interest in addressing these ongoing challenges. The Province welcomes innovation in better serving British Columbians, and your suggestions have been forwarded to our policy team for review.
Sincerely,
Melanie Hope
Executive Director
Homelessness and Supportive Housing Policy Branch
Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs
Reference: 72586
From: Gary Kahne
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Dear Ms. Hope,
Thank you for your email of February 13, 2025.
In your final paragraph, you state:
“The Province welcomes innovation in better serving British Columbians, and your suggestions have been forwarded to our policy team for review.”
While I appreciate your acknowledgment of the proposal, this does not provide any clarity on whether it will be seriously considered or acted upon. Given the urgency of the situation, our readers—and the broader public—deserve a concrete response. Specifically, when can we expect to hear the results of your policy team’s review, and what steps will be taken to evaluate the proposal’s feasibility?
I hope you will personally commit to providing a follow-up with these details.
Sincerely,
G. Kahne, MD., CM., FRCPC
Municipal
January 21, 2025.
Thanks for your e-mail.
About 10 years ago, a group created Woodwynn Farm, in Central Saanich (or perhaps Saanich) and tried to set up a rural treatment center. Please google it.
The concept was essentially much of what you have proposed. A rural setting for a residential rehab program with life and employment skill benefits.
I saw it as a positive approach and one that would be of great value for those in need and the general population.
It was a political hot-potato and in the end, the municipality would not approve zoning. There was a political game that went on for a few years. Finally, the group’s board killed it!
I refer to it often – a real attempt at a solution.
Of course, Victoria with a 19 sqkm land-base cannot create a rural treatment center.
I hope you will research the Woodwynn. I don’t recall the name of the man who created it, but if you were able to reach him, his knowledge could assist you in skirting around the hurdles placed before him. A lot has happened over the past 10 years… Perhaps Woodwynn was too early and too scary at that time.
Regards,
Marg Gardiner, B.Sc., M.B.A.
Councillor
City of Victoria
1 Centennial Square, Victoria BC V8W 1P6
T 250.532.1610
January 21, 2025
Dear Councillor Gardiner,
Off the top, thank you ever so much for taking the time and trouble to respond to my email.
I believe that if this could be achieved by Victoria City Council, or a private group, it would have long ago been accomplished.
My purpose in emailing our Mayor and Council was twofold:
- To alert you to my request to THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT (I hope that my proposal made it sufficiently clear that it is they who must take the lead on this).
- To elicit the municipality’s support in lobbying our provincial government for a humane and viable solution to these situations faced by our community, and so many others.
I am gratified by your clearly stated agreement with this approach.
Perhaps you might consider calling on our councillors to collectively lobby for it, and/or to elicit support for it in other BC municipalities.
G.J. Kahne, MD., CM., FRCPC
Response from Councillor Hammond (Feb 3, 2025):
Gary, thanks for your detailed information and sorry I’m so behind. I find so much of what you’re suggesting is way out of our jurisdiction. I also hope the province is truly interested in helping people and saving lives… just when I see people bent over in a drug-filled psychosis, I know it’s very difficult.
Dear Councillor Hammond,
I am in receipt of your email of February 3, 2025.
Regarding your concern about jurisdiction, you will note that the proposal is directed to the provincial government, as it is obviously beyond the city’s jurisdiction. Even if the city were able to provide sufficient space, provincial funding would still be required.
I contacted the Mayor and City Council for the following reasons:
- As a courtesy, since this concerns people residing in Victoria.
- In the hope that Victoria City Council will officially support the proposal.
- To encourage City Council to lobby the provincial government for its implementation.
In keeping with the intent to foster discussion, transparency, and accountability, as stated in my original email, we would appreciate a clear statement from council on whether it will support this proposal and advocate for provincial action.
Sincerely,
G.J. Kahne, MD, CM, FRCPC
Federal
January 29, 2025.
Dear Dr. Kahne:
On behalf of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your email of January 20, 2025.
Thank you for taking the time to share your views with the Prime Minister. You may be assured that your comments and suggestions have been carefully reviewed.
Once again, thank you for writing.
K. Xhignesse
Executive Correspondence Officer
Executive Correspondence Services
To the attention of K. Xhignesse
Executive Correspondence Officer
Executive Correspondence Services
January 30, 2025
January 30, 2025
Dear K. Xhignesse,
Thank you for your reply of January 29. It is gratifying to hear that my proposal has been carefully reviewed.
Our readers are keen to understand the outcome of this review. Given the urgency of the crises at hand, vague assurances are insufficient—clear commitments and timelines are necessary. Specifically:
- Have any concrete decisions been made regarding future actions? If so, what are they, and when will they be implemented?
- If no decision has been made yet, can your office assure us that we will be informed of forthcoming decisions or actions? If so, on what timeline can we expect an update?
- Will the Prime Minister commit new, dedicated federal funding—separate from existing provincial transfers—for actual construction costs? This direct financial commitment would provide provincial governments with the necessary incentive to act.
As I have informed all recipients of this proposal, responses will be published publicly to ensure transparency and accountability. I look forward to your reply and trust that your office will provide substantive information rather than generalized assurances.
Sincerely,
G.J. Kahne, MD, CM, FRCPC