Vancouver City Council approves funding for 58 new mental health workers

Vancouver City Council unanimously approves funding for 58 new mental health workers

Vancouver City Hall (City of Vancouver)

With unanimous approval by Vancouver City Council, the City of Vancouver will embark on a major program that expands its realm of influence into investing in healthcare.

All members of City Council were present for today’s review and decision on allocating a $2.8 million grant to Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) to hire 58 full-time equivalent mental health workers starting later in 2023.

This represents a major step towards fulfilling the ABC Vancouver party’s civic election campaign promise of hiring 100 mental health workers and 100 police officers to address the escalating mental health and public safety crisis in the city.

This policy was initially triggered by the November 2022 motion approved by the new makeup of City Council to act on ABC’s campaign promise.

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“I do think it’s hard to overemphasize the gravity of this grant and the positive impact it will have on our community. We have an opportunity to set a new standard in North America for a modern and compassionate approach for addressing complex issues when it comes to public health and safety, and this strengthens our Indigenous approaches in terms of how we deal with the mental health challenges in a more cultural appropriate manner,” said Mayor Ken Sim during today’s public meeting.

Today, Council voted unanimously to approve a $2.8M grant to VCH to significantly scale up frontline mental health crisis response in Vancouver.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this decision and the impact that this will have on the future of our city.

#vanpoli pic.twitter.com/R1qeLQNDsa

— Mayor Ken Sim (@KenSimCity) February 14, 2023

After working with VCH, it was determined that it would be optimal to not have all of the funding go towards mental health nurses. Instead, the City’s funding to VCH will hire interdisciplinary response teams to support a range of different types of mental health workers, including nurses, social workers, and peers. This approach is based on VCH’s experience and their account of what is most needed in order to best meet City Council’s goals.

The initial program will support the hiring of 58 full-time equivalent positions, including 10 additional positions for the existing Car 87/88 program of pairing mental health nurses with a Vancouver Police officer in an unmarked vehicle for non-emergency calls. This grows Car 87/88’s number of nurses from 12 to 22, which will increase the service’s number of daily calls from eight to 16.

Two positions will be added to the Assertive Outreach Team (AOT) for adults identified in recent emergency department or police interactions that may be suffering from mental health and/or opioids addictions issues.

Another two positions will be added to Triage Supports to answer triaging calls toward the most appropriate and efficient service.

Using the funding, a brand new service of “Moderate (Non-Police) De-escalation” will have 32 positions to help individuals who are not in high levels of crisis and not in need of Car 87/88. This unique team includes nurses, social workers, cultural support workers, peers, and liaison workers.

The remaining 12 positions will be dedicated to expanding Indigenous approaches to urgent mental health services. There is a disproportionately high Indigenous homeless population in the city, with 33% of the local homeless population identifying as Indigenous, despite accounting for just 2% of Vancouver’s entire population.

The wide range of mix of positions and services strategically supports people with addictions and who are homeless or living in shelters, single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) or supportive housing. This grows the existing number of positions from 19 (12 for Car 87/88 and seven for AOT) to 58, with the number of interactions with individuals in need of help projected to correspondingly grow from 31 to 54 per day.

VCH will stagger its hiring, which will begin this spring, allowing staff to be gradually onboarded and for the various services to be properly designed. The health authority notes the hiring work needs to be phased due to hiring capacity and labour market challenges.

The $2.8 million only supports startup hiring and partial-year coverage for 2023. In order to continue this program of supporting the cost of hiring 58 full-time mental health workers for an entire year, starting in 2024, it would cost $8 million annually — but this would not be enough to reach City Council’s goal of 100 mental health workers.

City staff will return to City Council before the end of 2023 to provide an update on the initial progress, outcomes, and achievements of the program.

It is anticipated that any further funding in future years will need to be covered by the provincial and federal governments. As healthcare is under provincial jurisdiction, such a program spearheaded by the City requires the approval of the provincial government, which announced its formal support in a February 5 press conference attended by Premier David Eby. However, at this time, the provincial government has not provided any funding.

City staff note the $2.8 million initial budget is equivalent to a 0.29% property tax increase, while a further $5.2 million in 2024 to reach a total of $8 million annually is equivalent to a further 0.55% tax increase — a combined property tax increase of 0.84%. While City Council has approved the program, it has yet to decide on whether the $2.8 million in funding will come from a reallocated budget or a property tax increase.

“It’s not a traditional responsibility of the city, but it is our jurisdiction because it is the people who live in this city who are suffering, and our role needs to be try to solve it, obviously in partnerships,” said Green Party councillor Adriane Carr in her final comments on the matter.

Carr also shared a personal story, recollecting working at a Gastown store at the time Riverview Hospital closed. “There was a massive change in the streets from families who couldn’t take in their family members” released from institutionalized care.

ABC councillor Lisa Dominato said: “The lines are increasingly getting blurred, and I think there needs to be a bigger conversation, provincially and nationally, on how urban cities like Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal are supported in dealing with these issues, which are complex, nuanced, and at the end of the day, we simply want to support these individuals who are struggling.”

Green Party councillor Pete Fry said: “This is a space where local governments have been struggling across our province. A multi-million dollar investment in mental health is not necessarily an investment that other local governments like Victoria, Prince George, and Terrace, and others can afford to make. This move has raised a few eyebrows of some of our local government colleagues across BC. This is great that we’re doing this, but it is an important initiative that the province has to take on. It can’t be just the local governments who can afford the resources to do this kind of work.”

ABC councillor Rebecca Bligh said: “I think we’re going to learn a lot this year, and I really look forward to regular updates as much as possible, so it’s not a decision that’s just today. I really think this requires regular updates… whether it’s the response to 911 calls, how the public comes to understand responses, or those outreach programs and what it’s like to connect with operators at SROs. There’s so much to learn from this program. Other municipalities in Eastern Canada are watching to learn the outcomes of what this program could be.”

ABC councillor Mike Klassen added: “While we announced this original idea of hiring 100 mental health nurses on the campaign trail, I think a lot of credit has to go to both City staff and VCH for taking this idea that voters responded to, and turning it into a very actionable and well defined set of goals, teams, and hiring strategies. I think it will lead to success, and I’m hopeful it’ll bring positive change.”

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