Image Credit: Adam Donnelly / CFJC Today

By Dylana Kneeshaw

SUPPORTIVE HOUSING

BC Coalition for Safe and Sustainable Supportive Housing vocalizing need for low barrier improvements

Jun 26, 2024 | 6:00 PM

KAMLOOPS — ASK Wellness in Kamloops recently joined a new province-wide organization aimed at improving the low barrier housing system. The newly formed BC Coalition for Safe and Sustainable Supportive Housing oversees more than 10,000 living spaces.

The goal of the group is to collaborate on long-term solutions for low barrier supportive housing. Residents in these units often face many challenges related to physical and mental health, and substance use. Without effective supports, the coalition says they’re also more likely to wind up back on the streets.

The BC Coalition for Safe and Sustainable Supportive Housing now has two dozen organizations on its roster, including ASK Wellness. Bob Hughes, the CEO of ASK, is also serving as the SaSSH Vice-Chair for the Interior.

“At the end of the day, the last thing we want to do is find people not successful and ending up back on the streets,” explains Hughes, who notes that the low barrier model needs shifting to ensure people don’t fall through the cracks. “That’s something I think we’ve heard complaints about is that we’ve got people not being successful in supportive housing and we need to evolve this sector of housing in a way that is guided by best practice.”

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Collectively, the group runs around 10,000 supportive housing units, and several of the organizations have two decades of operation under their belts. Hughes says what they have learned is it’s a demanding sector that needs constant evaluation and flexibility to change how it operates.

“We brought forward the results of our inquiry into supportive housing around what doesn’t work. A couple of years ago, we had put out that 17 per cent of people in Penticton who were in supportive housing weren’t successful, 12 per cent in Kamloops were not successful in going through housing. And so that was part of what led to the creation of complex care housing,” he says.

The coalition wants the supportive housing sector to have a voice, to reiterate to the provincial government what they’ve learned, and to provide facts around what low barrier housing is and isn’t.

“This means these are people who can literally come right off the street or right into shelter and step into housing where they get access to meals, where they are connected with nursing on site, where they end up having life skill supportive services.”

Part of what the group is vocalizing is the need for more permanent housing supply for this low barrier category. Hughes says the coalition has already begun discussions with BC’s Ministry of Housing and wants to continue giving input around future supportive housing plans.

“What we’ve seen is that a solution to homelessness is supportive housing, and done in an effective way that’s resourced properly with staffing and with partnerships with Interior Health, it works.”