Mothers in recovery are reunited with their children, thanks to housing designed to help

10-year-old Serenity hops through the courtyard of her new home in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, showing off everything she loves about this place.

She bounces a basketball, spins a cartwheel, points to the cubicle where she puts her bookbag at the after-school program.

But when asked why she likes living here, she brings up something completely different: her mother.

“I really love her, I was born with her,” she said.

“It was kind of sad not to have her when I lived with my grandma. I’m much happier because I live with my real parent.”

Serenity’s mother, Katy, is a recovering drug addict. When Serenity was seven, she was placed in the care of her paternal grandmother due to Katy’s drug use. The pair reunited 10 months ago, something made possible by where they live.

They have a two-bedroom apartment in the Union Gospel Mission’s Women & Family’s Center, a seven-story building with 63 women’s housing units, 33 of which are designed specifically for mothers in recovery and their children.

Funded largely by private donations, the concept is to keep families together, create support to help them heal, and break the generational cycle of addiction. Some floors are dedicated to women undergoing treatment, and others provide supportive housing once that treatment is complete.

“I really love this building, I think it saved my life a lot,” says Katy, who started using drugs when she was 14 and spent much of her own childhood in foster care. CBC News agreed to use the first names of residents and their children only to avoid harassment associated with the stigma of drug addiction.

The 36-year-old gestures to the window and says that if she couldn’t live with Serenity, she would be “out there, using, and probably dead by now.”

Considering that Katy is a former heroin user and that British Columbia’s toxic drug crisis continues to kill nearly seven people, that blunt assessment is not unjustified.

Women who use drugs and live on the streets face additional risks, including sexual assault. Addicted moms feel shame and face stigma, explains Tara MacDonald, the director of the center where Katy and Serenity live. So far, seven families have been reunited at the center, not counting mothers who are allowed to stay with their babies.

“If we can keep kids with their parents, and we can help educate people…if we can remove those obstacles and barriers,” MacDonald said, “that’s how things change.”

A unique approach

The Union Gospel Mission (UGM) Women’s and Family Center is one of a growing number of facilities across the country that reflect changing attitudes toward addicted mothers as the toxic drug crisis deepens.

The Public Health Agency of Canada says 1,755 babies were hospitalized for drug exposure during pregnancy in 2020 — a 73 percent increase since 2010.

In that same decade, there has been a growing awareness that it’s better for both parent and child to keep mothers and children together, says Heather Watson, an assistant professor of Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of Manitoba. Separating women from their babies is especially harmful, she says.

“We see incredibly high relapse rates, high rates of accidental overdose both survived and fatal, and we also see severe postpartum depression, with a very high risk of suicide.”

While jurisdictions across the country grapple with how to help mothers and babies, UGM’s program stands out in three ways: the support offered, the level of accommodations and how long women are allowed to stay.

Everything happens in the same place, from recovery treatment to daycare to after-school programming. The goal is to build a community where moms get the support they need to stay sober. While the organization is faith-based, there is no obligation to participate in religious programming. Women must abstain from drugs in order to live downtown.

Money was spent to ensure the units don’t feel cheap or institutional, which is possible because most of the funding to build and run it comes from private donations.

And, perhaps most importantly, says MacDonald, women can stay at the center for up to five years.

“We recognized that trauma and poverty and the oppression that people have experienced, that’s not something that is [with] counseling and a few months of classes, all of a sudden it’s okay, I’m fine,” MacDonald said.

“It really gave people a chance to heal to a point where substances didn’t have the same appeal, the same appeal, and they could reinvent, what life might look like for them.”

John Kelly, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and president of the American Board of Psychology, says studies show that after five years of complete remission, the relapse risk for a recovering addict drops to 15 percent, about the same percentage of risk as the overall population.

“That’s a really good timeline to set some goals,” says 31-year-old Tianna. She recently moved into a two-bedroom apartment in UGM after reuniting with her nine-year-old son, Cairo.

Can breathe again

Tianna plans to complete a four-year social work degree while she and Cairo live downtown.

Before becoming addicted to crystal meth during an abusive relationship, Tianna was an early childhood educator. It was only a year before she lost her job, lost contact with her family and custody of her son. A bad hit — meth laced with fentanyl — landed her in the hospital.

A street worker introduced her to detox and treatment, and eventually the chance to be reunited with her son at UGM.

She is hard on herself about her past.

“I was very ashamed, of myself as a mother, as a woman, especially because I come from a good family and have a career,” she said.

“I felt like I was better than all of that. It didn’t help that I was being judged by the whole world.”

When she walked into her new apartment, she said, she felt like she could breathe again. From two large windows in her corner unit, she can see Vancouver Harbor and the North Vancouver mountains in the distance – a view shared with some of the most expensive real estate in the country.

“I felt really loved, really cared for, like we deserved it.”

Building a sense of dignity is intentional, MacDonald explains. The architect approached lighting, furnishing and layout with a view to creating hope.

“We spend hours on every detail, about how this couldn’t feel institutionalized, no sacrifice when it comes to quality,” she said, adding that it meant spending more money than expected. Of the $35.95 million raised for the building’s construction, nearly $20 million came from private donations and the remainder from various government grants. Private donors also fund more than 90 percent of operating costs, according to UGM.

“We felt it was really important that we showed how much we value these individuals.”

Need more staff

The approach has the support of the BC government. The second floor is specially designed for women in recovery and their babies. Many are under surveillance, meaning that without a safe place to stay, the babies would likely be separated from their mothers.

In a statement, BC’s Ministry of Children and Family Development says UGM is one of many organizations it partners with to help families stay together.

“Their programs include wraparound support and services for babies and new mothers, and they work with the Department to ensure the safety and well-being of the child and parent.”

Leigh got sober when she was pregnant with her daughter. The baby was just two weeks old when the couple entered an earlier version of the UGM program, before the new building was built.

She says one of the main reasons the Women & Families Center approach works is because there is support from women who have been through the same thing, at different stages of recovery.

“People who’ve been there know the programs, they understand where you’ve been, they can empathize, they can empathize,” Leigh said. CBC News agreed to use her middle name only to avoid harassment associated with the stigma of drug addiction.

After more than two years, Leigh is now with UGM as a peer supporter.

Employees are something the Women & Families Center desperately needs. Despite a waiting list, some units remain empty — half of the maternal and infant units, and 35 percent of the other assisted living units — because they currently don’t have enough staff.

“It’s just been a real struggle to recruit,” she said. “We’re about to fill some of these last, lingering positions so we can safely have more occupancy.”

Katy says Serenity is doing well in school, making friends and seems happy. The two make music together, there is a guitar and an electric piano in their new apartment. Her room is full of stuffed unicorns and she points out her favorite sparkly dresses in her closet.

She says she feels safe with her mother in her new home. And Katy is getting used to hearing something she’s been longing for.

“She’ll just randomly say ‘I love you’ — and I’ve been waiting a long time to hear that.”