The official opposition of British Columbia is asking for generalized changes in support homes in the province after a CBC news investigation that revealed a 11 -day delay in the search for the body of a tenant.
Claire Rattée, the conservative critic of BC for mental health and addictions, said history reveals that the current approach of the province is equivalent to “addiction storage” and reveals greater access to drug treatment and that sober life facilities are urgently needed.
Diane Chandler lived in the Foxglove support housing building in Surrey, and died of an overdose in her room on April 20, 2024. On the days that followed, the installation staff signed multiple well -being controls that Chandler was alive.
Chandler’s body was not found until May 1, 2024.
Critical incident reports sent to BC Housing, then obtained by CBC News through freedom of information, reveal that the staff had mixed another resident for Chandler. When they finally discovered that Chandler died in their room, they also found the other tenant dead of an overdose in their room.
The children of Chandler, Tyler and Carley Gibbs were never contacted by BC Housing. Finally they learned of the delay in finding their mother’s body through the cremation service that helped at his funeral, and then through the report of the coroner about his death.
Speaking in the legislature, Tyler Gibbs said his mother was “failed” by the province, and that his addiction worsened after moving to his room in Foxglove.
“BC Housing never contacted me or my family, and I think it’s a misfortune. I want answers and I want to change. My mother deserved better,” he said.
BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said in the legislature on Wednesday that, in response to Chandler’s death, the province implemented changes that require well -being controls every 24 hours in each support of support housing throughout the province.
The province implemented changes to allow more frequent well -being controls in January 2024, four months before Chandler’s death.
Rattée said that the problem of accessing the rooms of the tenants does not address the problem of people who die behind closed doors in homes financed by province.
“There is a deeper problem here and I don’t think it’s around well -being controls,” he said. “It’s about encouraging the open use of drugs in support and storage addiction housing facilities,” he said.
It is not an isolated incident
CBC News later revealed a similar story of years before, and the promises that a mother said they were broken.
Cyndie Richards’s son, Shawn, died in Princess’s rooms, a rainfall installation in Vancouver, in 2017. The staff did not find his body for three days.
Richards said that after Shawn’s death, a rain manager promised him that, as a result of the error, the well -being controls in the tenants in the installation would be carried out more frequently.
She told CBC News that Chandler’s death seven years later shows that it has not been done enough.
Rattée said that stories reveal that the province must urgently expand treatment and mental services.
“We need to have a support house that is completely sober,” he said.
“If you want to have a mixed model, we must make sure to encourage treatment in these facilities. We need to ensure that people have an option between the two. We need to ensure that those who leave the treatment are not placed in wet facilities.”
