In 2017, we grew quickly to address the overdose emergency, hiring and training ‘peer’ experiential overdose prevention workers to provide rapid response overdose prevention. In 2020, in response to the COVID-based emergency housing needs, we rapidly extended our services again to provide overdose prevention supports at new temporary sheltering sites. At the time we employed over 40 experiential harm reduction workers at various off-site services including: ‘The Harbour’ supervised consumption service on Pandora, overdose prevention rooms at three housing facilities in Victoria, and an on-foot overdose prevention team that provides naloxone trainings and links to health and treatment services to people living on the street, and in supportive housing in Victoria.
The SOLID team has grown to about 100 employees and our greater membership is made up of around 3000 community members. At our most recent location at 1056 North Park (at Cook St), We continue to provide health education programs including daily support groups such as our indigenous women’s group, hep-c education group, and creative writing and music therapy groups. We also operate our morning and evening syringe recovery and harm reduction teams, and provide support getting ID, accessing social assistance, and accessing health services (such as accompanying individuals to hospital and doctor visits).
Last year SOLID began our housing case management program, with two housing case managers assisting individuals with accessing permanent housing directly from our services. We also began our sheltering program this year, giving us increased connectedness through the day and night with individuals needing supports in immediate access to health, housing, treatment and other supports.