This day here marks 1,185 days since David was last free of street opioids. It’s been that long since he last set a foot on carpet. Stepped into an actual house. Been welcomed at a family dinner. “I used to build homes for people, build dreams. I haven’t been inside one of those dreams in…

Walk around the neighbourhoods where people live homeless and you’ll soon bump into people who are out there – often in their own recent sobriety – helping others in various ways or trying to get people into recovery. Here’s the latest people to appear, the brand-new local chapter of the Crazy Indians Brotherhood – from…

BC Housing still calls the 10,000-person provincial backlog for government housing a waitlist, but JT feels certain after 10 years on that list that nobody’s coming. “It’s pretty tough to see people I know who have been housed three or four times already and I’m still waiting,” he says. “Some lady came to take my…

This couple just got some online profile following a series of images of a bylaw seizure of all their possessions, including a particularly sad one of an officer tipping their perfectly good tent into the dumpster. But Keith says that he and Jen have mostly figured out how to stay out of bylaw’s way, and…

Not only do Brody and his best pal Cedar avoid homelessness by living on their 25-foot boat, Brody can claim the title “hero” for being on that boat one day 12 years back in the Comox Valley when a young woman was struck by a hit and run driver on Comox Road along the dike.…

How do you roll? Turns out that’s a BIG question for people out there these days, because the only drop-in centre in the region for people who look noticeably poor and sick no longer allows them in if they’re pulling something on wheels. And if you can’t get in, you can’t eat, get out of…

Julia basically grew up on Victoria streets after her parents kicked her out at 14 and the systems that are supposed to notice something like that missed her entirely for the next 4 years. “It’s hard enough to find a place to live as an adult, let alone when you’re 14,” says Julia. “I bounced…

The big city cleanup on 900-block Pandora on June 11 felt very threatening when I first heard about it but actually turned out to feel kind of festive. The 120 or so people who typically call that block home are gathering with the City’s permission on the much nicer grassy median in the 1000-block, where…

Stones and goodbyes were lovingly thrown into the sea yesterday by five women marking the end of a 12-week grieving process that @vanislandhealth counsellor Mary McAlister provides for residents at six supportive housing facilities in Victoria. “I’ve probably lost 300 people I’ve known, but we have to pick just one for this, and I chose my mom,”…

Homelessness can come in an instant for some people, or it can be a long, slow slide over 25 years, like it has been for Brianna. She has lived in many of the places that BC Housing has latched onto over the years as a solution of the moment – first Blanshard Court, then the…