The Mustard Seed Kamloops is working to revamp their men's recovery program which has existed for more than 20 years in the community. The program will shut down temporarily beginning July 31, 2019.
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July 19, 2019 - 3:00 PM
KAMLOOPS — The Mustard Seed Kamloops announced earlier this week it would be shutting down its supported sober living space program at the end of the month.
Managing director of the non-profit Christian organization, Diane Down, says the supported living space program for men with addictions has existed for more than 20 years. She explains there were flaws within the program they wanted to address, and the only way to do that was to reboot the whole thing.
“The gentlemen weren’t allowed to work because they were fully covered (by the ministry),” Down says. “So it made a barrier around how we can transition them forward.”
Down explains the recovery program was great for men in their initial stages of recovery but became problematic in the latter stages when participants in the program needed to start reintegrating into society.
“So we needed to change that model,” Down says.
The program has 17 beds and now has four men in the program. The agency says they stopped accepting intakes once they found out they would be temporarily shutting down the program.
“Because we knew…at the moment we only had four guys so we were already in contact with other agencies,” Down says. “Most of them already have plans for housing so that actually happened quite smoothly.”
Down says the program sees men from ages 20 to 60 and their intake referrals varied.
“There are times where I feel like we get more (intakes) in the winter,” Down says. “Folks do seem to be more motivated to work on recovery if that means they can get shelter. Freezing weather is a motivator, the two go hand-in-hand.”
The program will shut down on July 31 as Down works to remodel the program and become re-registered with the government, which she says hasn’t been an easy process.
While the program closes, the building where the recovery program is housed will receive some minor cosmetic renovations, Down says.
She’s also working on forming partnerships with other agencies in the city.
“We are looking forward to making bigger announcements in the future about what we will be offering and how that will fill gaps in the community,” she says. “We have to make it bigger, better and more sustainable and provide more flexibility and choice for our clients.”
Down says the new programming could start as early as September.
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