The growing complexity of client needs prompts Cool Aid centre to temporarily shutter.

Photo: Emily Vance / Capital Daily

Last week, Victoria’s Cool Aid Society announced it was shutting its Downtown Community Centre (DCC) while it reviews options for more effective outreach and service programs for its clients.

CEO Elin Bjarnason told Capital Daily,“We've had to self-fund a lot of additional supports and that’s just not sustainable for us. We also want to make sure that the services we are delivering are the services that the population we serve needs.”

Cool Aid’s 2023 financial report shows it received $17.3 million last year from the BC Housing Management Commission, $9.8 million from Island Health, $2.7 million in donations and grants from the Victoria Foundation, United Way of Greater Victoria, City of Victoria, BC Housing, Civic Heritage Trust, Coast Capital Savings Credit Union, along with contributions from individuals from the CRD community.

Last year, the non-profit spent $24.5 million on salaries and benefits, $225K on staff development and training, and $2 million on program and client support.

The centre, located at 755 Pandora, offered a number of drop-in programs and services such as peer groups, education and training, public washrooms, computer and internet access, and snacks and meals. But last week, it released a statement saying, “It is time to pivot and to modernize the services we’re providing to ensure we have a sustainable service that really meets the needs.”

Those needs are changing.

Increasingly, people living on the streets in Victoria have concurrent substance use and mental-health disorders and what Bjarnason describes as “higher intensity needs.” In a social media post, the organization cited t he lack of a sustainable funding solution for its outreach services as one of the key reasons it shut down.

‍ Crosstown won't cross over

That outreach service gap won’t be filled at Cool Aid’s new $60 million Crosstown development project on the former Tally Ho property at 3020 Douglas. Crosstown is slated to open this fall. That facility will add 102 affordable apartments to the city and 52 new homes for existing supportive housing tenants.

While one of the uses for the Crosstown space will be client engagement in its various community amenities, Bjarnason said Cool Aid will not transfer service functions from the DCC over to Crosstown. Those working with people with concurrent disorders (CODs) emphasize the need for consistent continuity of care. For people living with CODs, fear of stigma and mistrust of service and care providers can be barriers to treatment seeking, access, and engagement with services so this closure represents a rupture. It’s also a bit of a head-scratcher, given it comes only two years after a $700K renovation in 2022, supported by Hero Works. That renovation brought the DCC a new community kitchen, updated lighting, plumbing and HVAC, new flooring, bathrooms, computer stations, and exterior landscaping to Cool Aid’s facility.

Facility may work for overnighting

Bjarnason insists that work won’t go to waste. “We will be able to utilize that and the renovation itself actually gives us a lot more flexibility with what we can do in the space,” she said. “We've had some very preliminary conversations around it being a more permanent night shelter with mats, similar to what the Victoria Native Friendship Centre provides.”

That would still permit Cool Aid to provide services around treatment and recovery during the daytime.

“We have run an emergency weather response with mats. We've had 20 or 25 in that space in the past, and so we absolutely could do that again this winter,” said Bjarnason.  As colder fall weather approaches and people remain sheltering in many of the parks where city bylaws on the books prohibit them from doing so, that news may be welcome. That plan may also lend some reprieve to city councillors and providers scrambling to come up with temporary or permanent housing.

Victoria Coun. Jeremy Caradonna told Capital Daily, “While sheltering-related challenges certainly continue in the city, the progress in the parks has been overwhelmingly a success story. The city is doing what it can to move people indoors and move away from public sheltering and encampments.” He noted that the larger, ongoing challenges such as the ones Bjarnason is referring to, require more resources from the provincial and federal governments.

In the meantime, Bjarnason said the DCC won't sit empty for long.  “We will work hard to ensure that we're able to have services that are funded and that meet the needs of the population,” she said.