Interior Health praises Vernon for work on supportive housing, complex care – Vernon News

Photo: Jon Manchester

Turning Points’ My Place 2 facility in Vernon.

Interior Health is praising Vernon for its leadership on supportive housing.

A letter from IH CEO Susan Brown to mayor Victor Cumming expresses “heartfelt gratitude to you and the council for your unwavering advocacy and dedication to fostering community partnerships.”

The letter is included in the agenda package for Monday’s council meeting.

In it, Brown says Vernon’s efforts “have been instrumental in developing safe and supportive housing for community members in Vernon and its surrounding areas.”

Brown notes the mission at Interior Health “is to collaborate closely … to provide the necessary healthcare services, ensuring a seamless continuum of comprehensive client support while respecting individual choices and goals.”

Brown says that over the past three years, IH has “consistently expanded mental health and substance use services in Vernon and the North Okanagan.”

That includes the addition of 23 full-time equivalent mental health substance use staff, as well as improvements to existing services and the establishment of new support systems.

“These range from overdose prevention sites to integrated treatment teams and outpatient withdrawal management.”

Brown says complex care housing is “a novel service in British Columbia,” and the health authority is “currently in the process of deploying our initial units in Kelowna and Kamloops.”

“Future phases for complex care housing in the Interior will be determined through consultations with the province and underpinned by lessons learned from this first phase of this initiative and in conjunction with provincial evaluation, details of which are currently under development.”

Vernon has added a downtown overdose prevention site, urgent care center, and multiple supportive housing facilities that include on-site addiction services.

Brown says Interior Health “remains steadfast” in its commitment to “working with all of our partners in addressing the diverse needs of individuals requiring mental health and or substance use services and support, including the vulnerable unhoused or sheltered population.”