Attachment 6: Letter to Community – Our Place – June 4, 2018

Open House on June 13 - Therapeutic Recovery Community, 94 Talcott Road, View Royal

As part of our ongoing commitment to engage with our neighbours on the proposed Therapeutic Recovery Community at 94 Talcott Road, we are hosting our third Open House on Wednesday June 13 and invite you to join us for a tour and information session.

Open House: Wednesday, June 13 Where: 94 Talcott Road, Victoria BC Tours: 6:30pm - 7:30pm Discussion: 7:30pm – 8:30pm

As you may be aware, we have been exploring examples of therapeutic treatment facilities for several years with the goal of restoring lives for people in our region who are caught in the cycle of addiction, homelessness and our criminal justice system. Working with the provincial government, our goal is to bring together the necessary systems of clinical supports and break that costly and destructive cycle; our goal to help these individuals reclaim their health and develop positive social and employment skills at 94 Talcott Road.

For the past year, we have been working diligently along parallel tracks to garner partnerships and commitments from several provincial government agencies, and to engage with residents and the Town of View Royal to seek support for the necessary re-zoning of the property in order to establish a Therapeutic Recovery Community.

Last month, the provincial government announced their contribution of operational funding for the first seven years to help us get established. It is our hope that the provincial government’s five-year funding commitment further demonstrates the authenticity of our vision as well as our ability to create and operate a long-term Therapeutic Recovery Community that fosters individual change and promotes positive growth to help individuals return to society to lead productive lives.

The funding commitment from the province does not, however, underwrite the costs of the entire Therapeutic Recovery Community operation and our private funding campaign continues as we work through the ongoing process of rezoning the property with the Town of View Royal.

Update on the Therapeutic Recovery Community (TRC) since we last wrote to you in April:

• We have held two Open Houses at the facility and have had a number of people from the community tour the facility and learn more about our plans for the TRC.
• Our Rezoning Application has been presented to the Town of View Royal’s Committee of the Whole for preliminary review.
• Provincial Government has committed $4-7 million over 7 years in support of the TRC pending a successful rezoning.

We are hopeful that the Public Hearing and final consideration of our Rezoning application will occur before the end of June.

To date, the feedback we have received has been very encouraging. We have heard broad recognition that this type of program is desperately needed; it addresses the complex issues many individuals face and provides true hope and an opportunity for full recovery.

If you have not yet had the opportunity to learn about our proposal, we hope you will join us at the upcoming Open House and tour the facility with us. We welcome the opportunity to meet with you, discuss the program in more detail, and answer any questions you may have. Feel free to give me a call at 250-388-7112 ext. 239.

The information that we are presenting at our Open Houses is also uploaded on our website: www.outplacesociety.com

In closing, I wish to thank you personally for your patience and support of the past two years. With the help of our partners in the region, 103 of our most vulnerable citizens were successfully transitioned from Choices into permanent housing. We believe that 94 Talcott Road is more appropriate facility for a closed, secure and abstinence-based Therapeutic Recovery Community and ask for your support.

Sincerely,

Don Evans

Therapeutic Communities provide a cost-effective path to recovery and have a singular purpose of preventing and treating disordered lives by bringing together the most effective research, prevention and treatment resources to further the vision that change is possible and that we are all agents of this human obligation.