The Mustard Seed in Kamloops will be closing its dayroom on West Victoria Street at the end of July.
CEO James Gardiner says after July 31, services like counselling, advocacy, and access to nurses, will still be available to the public, but drop-in dayroom services will not.
He also says people in the Mustard Seed’s recovery program often face threats to their sobriety when they come in contact with people in the dayroom who are not clients.
“We’ve got a lot going on in that space and I think our feeling is that it was too much,” Gardiner told Radio NL. “So, the decision is to focus on the programming, the core programming that we’re going to be offering and lower the level of congestion.”
Gardiner says public access to their day space program will be cut off for a range of reasons, including safety concerns for female guests at their shelter – Harbour House.
“In our building we’re running a very good health and wellness program, we have a men’s recovery program, we’ve got a men’s shelter and women’s shelter,” he said. “We’re doing a lot out of that space and we have limited capacity in terms of limited space and funding availability.”
Gardiner also says their capacity to meet the demand for drop-in services has diminished, noting The Mustard Seed is continuing to extend resources this way is no longer sustainable.
“We’ve made a decision to focus on what we do really well, that’s aligned with what our goals are and what our funding partners are and so that’s the root cause of what we’re doing,” Gardiner said.
In a letter to community partners, Gardiner also said a number of people using the dayroom were housed elsewhere or being helped by other partner agencies.
“This change in operations will allow us to focus the resources we do have to provide targeted support for a smaller group of shelter guests, leading to higher numbers of successful outcomes
News about the closure of the Mustard Seed dayroom comes about two weeks after the sale of The Loop property in North Kamloops to local realtor Brendan Shaw.
While The Loop is also expected to shut down, operator Glenn Hilke told Radio NL he’s still in negotiations to try to keep the facility open.
Referencing the pending closure of The Loop, Bob Hughes – the CEO of ASK Wellness says he’s concerned about the summer.
“I think the workload just doubled,” Hughes said. “Now we have not only the North Shore to consider what needs to be put in place but also the South Shore – the whole city.”
