Recovery house cut by 40 per cent

Recovery house cut by 40 per cent
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby NOW assistant editor
Published Nov. 27, 2002

Trish knew she was truly messed up when her two-year spree of booze, crack cocaine and marijuana abuse left her stranded in an eastside hotel room with a man throwing knives at the walls.
Weighing less than 100 pounds and covered in scab marks from the drug abuse, Trish knew there were only two ways out of this mess - stop the cycle of addiction or die.
But when she finally made the call to a detox centre, she was told her best hope was being placed on a waiting list.
"It was awful," Trish said this week, almost one year after that fateful day. "I just wanted to die. I didn't want to be sober, I'd pushed my family away, and the worst thing about it is I was more worried about my cat than my own son."
But today, Trish is now firmly on the road to recovery thanks to the fact that she found space inside one of the few dedicated recovery houses for women in the province of B.C.
On April 15 this year, Trish moved into Charlford House, a 14- bed supportive recovery home located in a quiet north Burnaby neighbourhood, where she has begun learning the tools that helped her to say no to drugs and get her life back on track.
Next month, Trish expects to celebrate her first clean and sober birthday since she was a teenager.
Unfortunately, the good work of Charlford House may be at risk. After 35 years of helping women clean up from drug and alcohol abuse, the Burnaby-based recovery program which has a success rate of 57 per cent, has been handed a 40 per cent budget cut.
In addition to the funding cuts, Charlford House has been told that it may be forced to accept new clients who do not follow the recovery program based on the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
"It's basically ludicrous what they're doing," says Cal Walker, a certified general accountant and executive director of Charlford House. "We were willing to take a cut of five to 10 per cent, but 40 per cent is a little steep."
The funding cut is supposedly targeted at the 'administrative costs' of Charlford House, but with a staff of only four people, there's not much to cut in that department. So in reality, instead of reducing their top staff person and chief fundraiser to working just two days per month, Charlford House will likely be forced to eliminate its most ambitious project - the dream of buying and owning its own property.
Other items that will likely be lost are bus passes for the clients, swimming programs and a week-long summer camping trip where clients can bring their children.
Walker said some of the funding cuts are penny wise and pound foolish. For example, during the interview for this story, Women's' and Children's Hospital called Charlford House to state that a client had just arrived in a taxi to be treated for an asthma attack. However, under the cutbacks, that client would have been forced to take an ambulance to hospital instead of a taxi - meaning Victoria would be billed $75 for the EHS ride instead of $30 for a cab.
Another cutback is the elimination of funding for the voluntary board of directors - meaning those people will now have to pay for their own training and seminars, and even their own pizza on nights when they host board meetings. That change will probably result in fewer people volunteering to help, says Walker.
Charlford House staff believe the provincial government and the local health authority are putting people's lives at risk for the sake of saving a few dollars.
"These budget cuts are just that - cuts. In my opinion, they don't seem to care if people die," Walker said.
"That's what it translates into - people will die," adds program director Linda Shaw, who became a drug and alcohol counsellor after she cleaned up from her own addictions more than 18 years ago. "It's like the government is telling these people that they are disposable."
Shaw said part of the problem is that too much change is happening too quickly. She also believes her views are shared by a majority of workers at other recovery houses in the region.
And for clients like Trish, the impending loss of the camping trips and other 'extras' at Charlford House will probably mean there is less likelihood that she'd ever get clean.
"Charlford House made me face a lot of my past that I didn't want to face," says Trish, who is happy to announce that's she's gained 40 pounds and her complexion has cleaned up since she stopped using drugs.
"I remember I used to blame the world for all my troubles. But today, I see it's because I refused to deal with the problems in my life. This house saved my life," she said. "When one of my best friends died this summer, I had the security and safety of this house to fall back on.
"Now I have people I can call and places I can go."