B.C. approves funding for 'desperately' needed addictions centre for Vancouver Island women

The B.C. government has agreed to pay for a new addictions recovery centre in Greater Victoria that’s desperately needed by women on Vancouver Island.

Our Place Society has been running New Roads Therapeutic Recovery Community for men since 2018 – and will now expand to include a separate program for women.

“(It’s) maybe the best piece of news of my working life,” says Our Place Society CEO Julian Daly. “It’s so desperately needed, especially at this time we’re in the midst of a drug crisis where people continue to die and women continue to die in increasing numbers,” he says.

The publicly-funded addictions recovery centre for women will be built at the front of the existing site at 94 Talcott Rd. in View Royal. There will be 20 treatment beds, which staff hope to have ready by the end of the summer.

“The women on the island who want long-term treatment will not have to leave the island to get that and that’s the biggest win in all of this,” says New Roads director Cheryl Diebel. “They will be able to stay connected to their family and their community while they get treatment.”

Advocates for addictions recovery are thrilled by the new supports – and say more are needed.

“We’ve been crying out and dying for recovery beds and there’s just not many options,” says Umbrella Society’s training and education manager, Evan James. “Recovery is not a one-size-fits-all and there needs to be as many different options with the least amount of distractions."

Rebecca's story

An outreach worker for Victoria’s Umbrella Society says having options where women can be vulnerable outside the company of men can be crucial.

“I personally have never met a woman who is in addiction or in recovery who has not had some kind of sexual trauma… generally from an abuser that was male,” says Rebecca Wakefield.

The 42-year-old has been clean and sober for years – putting the turmoil of active addiction behind her.

“I had hit this point where I was like, I will either jump off this roof of the building that I was in or I could pick up the phone and ask for help. And I chose to pick up the phone and ask for help.”

It was July 15, 2015. Wakefield says she texted her dad. She remembers him picking her up, taking her to the hospital, and starting to change the course of her life.

She enrolled in a co-ed treatment facility in Vancouver. While she says it was a positive experience, she thinks being in an all-women’s facility would’ve helped her address a trauma much sooner.

“Never did I bring up sexual assault-type traumas, which by that time I had had a few,” she says. “I didn’t feel comfortable to tell my story of anything like that, those specific traumas with a bunch of guys.”

Wakefield says she worked through it after her treatment.

New Roads for women

The director of New Roads says many of the women they anticipate seeing will have a background in intimate partner violence.

“It’s important to understand with addictions that we want the person to focus on where they’re at, what their addictions are and how they got to where they are today, and to do that it’s really important to have them in an area where they feel really safe and with like-people,” says Diebel.

To complete the program, women will stay for nine to 24 months and priority will be given to people who have experienced housing instability, mental health issues and/or have a connection with the criminal justice system.

The team has already started to prepare the space for renovation. Staff are working with an architect and plan to put most of the rooms on the second floor, to add a common area, and to build out the parking lot turning it into a garden instead.

“We’ll be applying for permits with regards to the building of it,” says Diebel.

B.C.’s minister of mental health and addictions announced the funding approval when it was questioned by CTV News Jan. 26 about the status of Our Place’s grant request. At the time, Minister Jennifer Whiteside and Premier David Eby were promising the delivery of 180 beds across B.C. to support people in their journey to addictions recovery.

“No person should have to wait for detox, no person should have to wait for treatment,” says Eby.

With files from CTV News Vancouver Island's Anna McMillan