The Victoria Cool Aid Society has temporarily shut down its Downtown Community Centre while it reviews options for more effective programs and services there.
The society said in a statement that the decision to close the Pandora Avenue centre has been made “with an eye toward financial and other efficiencies.”
“Recent reviews have reflected a need to make changes at our Downtown Community Centre to better meet the growing and complex needs of people in our client community,” the statement said.
“For now, we have closed the centre while we actively work to identify a future operating model that fits our mandate, the need and a sustainable-funding option while continuing our community outreach work in a different way.”
The community centre has a gym and offers such services as drop-in classes, vocational programming, community meals, and computer and internet access.
It was renovated by the HeroWork community group in 2022.
“We’re at a place that we needed to pause to be able to rebuild and move forward,” said Cool Aid chief executive Elin Bjarnason.
“We’re interested in looking at something more focused on treatment and recovery.”
There could also be a nighttime shelter with mats started up, she said.
“I would hope within the next month to two months we’ll have something in place.”
The centre has been serving about 80 people a day, Bjarnason said.
All of Cool Aid’s many other operations are unchanged, including its housing locations, emergency shelters and health centre.
Cool Aid began as a hostel in 1968, serving transient youth before adding a medical clinic in 1970 and a dental clinic in 1972.
It was incorporated as the Victoria Cool Aid Society in 1976, and opened the province’s first supportive-housing apartments in 1991.
The society now has more than 500 supportive-housing units at nine sites.
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
