File photo (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

REACHING HOME GRANT

CMHA Kamloops’ Envision Connect program back up to near 16 hours per day thanks to Reaching Home grant

Aug 25, 2025 | 4:22 PM

KAMLOOPS — A little over $2.2 million in federal grant funding is being distributed to social agencies throughout Kamloops through the Reaching Home initiative.

CMHA Kamloops is one of the recipients, with the funding going towards their Envision Connect program, which helps provided mobile outreach and transportation services for unhoused individuals. The new funding will allow CMHA to expand their hours to nearly 16 per day, in turn helping more people in need.

“We are very close to 16,” confirmed CMHA Kamloops Executive Director Alfred Achoba. “One of the challenges we had last year was in as much as we dropped down to eight hours, we also lost the extra staff. Now, we are back to two staff, 16 hours a day and it’s really good to see that extra funding from Reaching Home to be able to demonstrate the impact the envision has had over the last four years.”

The Envision shuttle gets a lot of use during the winter, and in particular during extreme cold weather when it helps transport homeless people to available beds and warming spaces.

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On top of transportation, the program also provides services not often found in mobile forms.

“Those individuals who are not able to access shelter either by their choice or by a lack of shelters, we are trying to still demonstrate the same level of services that they would receive if they were to come indoors,” said Achoba. “We are able to provide food, we are able to provide harm reduction supplies, we are able to provide referrals to shelter, to housing. We are still collecting that same continuum that we would have in a physical program and transforming it into a triage mobile program that can get to people wherever they are within our community.”

Other community agencies to receive funding through Reaching Home includes ASK Wellness, the Mustard Seed, Elizabeth Fry Society and A Way Home Kamloops.