The Executive Director of the Mustard Seed Kamloops thinks a new program expected to launch in September will be better suited to the needs of people.

Diane Down says the funding model for the men’s recovery program that is ending on July 31st was inadequate, but the bigger issue was that clients were not allowed to work.

She says that requirement is a ‘barrier to jumping to sustainable living.’

“You slowly reengage into a new life, because there are folks in the community that want supported sober living,” she said. “And that’s actually a bit of a gap in our community. There’s just not enough of that, so we remain committed to an abstinence based program.”

Down says no one will be homeless when the program comes to an end as they were able to find housing for the three clients currently using some of the 17 available spaces.

“We need to look for new ways to do that, and we are going to take a pause,” Down said, on NL Newsday. “We knew this was coming and so we had already reduced the number of residents that we had. It’ll just give us a bit of breathing room while we look to re-register and look for new partners.”

Down is optimistic that things will be up and running in six to eight weeks, and she says the Mustard Seed will also take a few weeks to refurbish their space during the transition.