Long story short:

Riverview which had a turnover rate of 1000 per year and could house 3000 patients at a time got shut down. There was an initiative proposed by the government to make a more spread our community based rehabilitation program for mental health and drug abuse. Riverview had it’s own problems (abuse, electro therapy etc.) which motivated the closing along other things. But the problem was they closed Riverview down before implementing the community based rehab programs.

For the past 15 years it has been hot potatoed back and forth. The shitty thing was I think in the early 10’s there was an attempt to inject a lot of money into mental health. Like double digit millions. But once again governments only allocated single digit amounts between years. No where near what was proposed.

Now with pandemic, the increase of fentanyl in the drug supply cause more mental health issues, SRO’s not being maintained, and only enacting 1 pillar of the 3 pillars of recovery, shit is just getting worse. It is such a bandaid solution for all these things.