ASK Wellness to expand services at Maverick Manor for more intensive recovery model

KAMLOOPS — The Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions has announced the addition of 100 publicly funded recovery beds around the province.

Among organizations receiving funding is ASK Wellness. Twelve spaces have been allocated to Maverick Manor, which opened as transitional housing at the end of 2017.

ASK Wellness Executive Director Bob Hughes says these beds will provide a space for a more intensive treatment model for community members in need of help to overcome addictions.

“We just don’t have that,” Hughes said. “We’ve got some supportive recovery services with Interior Health, but we just don’t have the intensive recovery model that is really required at this critical time in our province and in our region. This has been a nail-biting wait for us, for me.”

ASK Wellness purchased the Maverick Motor Inn in 2016, converting it into transitional housing for people in the final stages of recovery. The government has approved an application for 12 recovery beds at this site in order to expand on Maverick Manor’s current services.

“What we wanted to do was swim up river,” Hughes said, “create kind of a more intensive treatment model for folks for the first three months and then people kind of gain some traction by living as we currently see now and then we’ve got some WorkBC funding to support people to get training for work and re-entry into the workforce.”

In recent years the province has invested in supportive housing and harm reduction in Kamloops. Hughes says these remain important tools, saving thousands of lives.

“We need to do that, but now I believe that the province is realizing and preparing – as reflected in this 100 beds that are being invested in – that now we start to look at doing the actual real work of helping people overcome their addictions.”

Hughes says ASK Wellness has been preparing for this new model for some time and he expects the project to get underway by April.