For the next few months, the City worker passers-by notice hauling a sandbag on a waterworks project may be a recovering drug user.

Of course, the person selling them their morning coffee, fixing their shoes, programming their computer, teaching them a guitar lesson, fitting them for glasses or giving them financial advice may also be a recovering substance abuser, they just don’t know it.

A pilot project that started at the end of April is supporting four recovering drug users in their transition back into the employment market. The Four Pillars Supported Employment Pilot Project was initiated by the City of Vancouver’s Drug Policy Program (DPP) and was created through a partnership with a number of organizations that collectively planned the program and are actively supporting various aspects of it. Through this pilot, the DPP hopes to create a model for employing recovering drug users.

The typical cycle is to use drugs, enter rehab, stay drug-free for a while, fall back into using again and then going back into rehab. “This is meant to break that cycle.” Zarina Mulla, Drug Policy Planner

Zarina Mulla knows it can work. The DPP’s planner, who is coordinating the City’s pilot, headed an employment project in Thailand that brought youth who were recovering from drug use to work in a bakery. She said that the typical cycle is to use drugs, enter rehab, stay drug-free for a while, fall back into using again and then going back into rehab. “This is meant to break that cycle,” she said.

In advance of the DPP’s creation of the policy paper, Preventing Harm From Psychoactive Substance Use, Mulla initiated and took part in more than 50 dialogues with diverse communities throughout Vancouver. “The theme of employment came up over and over again,” she said. “Employment is a very important protective factor against further drug use.”

The project will take place over 26 weeks. Four former drug users will share two full-time positions in the City’s Engineering Department’s Waterworks and Sewers Operations Branch. Two will work full-time one week, from 7 am-3:30 pm, while the other two will attend two, five-hour training sessions with the Hastings Institute. Each week, they will switch tasks so that they each spend one week working followed by one week of training.

Cory Wint, Acting Manager of Employment Services with Building Opportunities with Business (itself a pilot project through the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance to assist social services recipients to become job ready) runs the Case Coordination Project, which has two offices, located in the Downtown Eastside. Case coordinators help clients along the employment continuum, often starting with their clients’ very basic needs. “It’s just taking a realistic look at their challenges and offering supports at a deeper and more intimate level.” They may arrange for somebody to receive dentures or food, or they may help the client obtain suitable housing.

The four men range in age from early 40s to mid-50s and used various substances in different patterns. “The common theme is that they want to change.” Rod Paynter, Tradeworks Training Society.

Wint has great hopes for the pilot and hopes it will create a model other City departments, and private industry, will use. “I’m passionately supportive of this program.”

In looking for suitable candidates for the City pilot, Wint said Building Opportunities with Business worked with their case coordinators to find people in recovery who are physically fit, able to do heavy labour, involved in relapse prevention activities, and have personal and/or community supports.

The men were provided with access to medical care, one got treatment for Hepatitis C and was provided with nutritional supplements and they all received bus tickets and suitable work clothing and boots. 

He also administered an evaluation tool, measuring each client’s self-sufficiency; clients will fill out this survey again part-way through the pilot and again at the end.

Rod Paynter, a job developer and job coach with Tradeworks Training Society worked with the four men to get them job ready. He said they range in age from early 40s to mid-50s and used various substances in different patterns. “The common theme is that they want to change.”

A few days before the men were to start the program, Paynter said they were feeling scared and excited. He admitted to feeling the same. “I want to do right by them,” he said. He said the City jobs are really good jobs that pay well and have union protection (they’ll belong to CUPE 1004).

Paynter said he met with the men’s foremen and manager and felt comfortable they’ll be supported. “They are all on board; they are so supportive of this idea. I trust them to take care of my guys,” he said. “I can see they’re not doing this because they have to, they believe in it.”

“Engineering is not a big player in Downtown Eastside initiatives. But if we can do something, we will do it.” Phil Karlsson, City of Vancouver Engineering Services

Phil Karlsson, Manager of Waterworks Operations with the City’s Engineering Services does indeed believe in this pilot project. “We just saw there was an opportunity to provide an opportunity to some of the people who are in the Downtown Eastside to get back into the work environment,” he said. “Engineering is not a big player in Downtown Eastside initiatives. But if we can do something, we will do it.”

Karlsson said the timing worked well, because he needs people to do summer vacation replacement. He admitted that taking on recovering drug users to work around heavy equipment, sometimes next to traffic, took a bit of a leap of faith. “The nature of engineering is we tend to take risks, we tend to push the envelope a bit.” He said the support from Tom Tim, Deputy City Engineer, and Peter Judd, Assistant City Engineer, made a difference too. “We know, down here, we have their support.”

Karlsson said the jobs the men have taken are heavy labouring jobs that are physically demanding. He said the City worked to orient the men to the job and to train them in safety procedures. The foremen have been briefed on the pilot and the men’s background. “The men are expected to do the job but (the foremen) have been told to demonstrate some understanding.”

The manager said his department has never knowingly hired a person in recovery, although employees have, in the past, developed alcohol or drug problems. He said they were given leave time to get treatment and then, if possible, they returned to work.

Back at the Drug Policy Program office, Zarina Mulla is keeping an eye on the pilot and hoping it works well. She said the program started small intentionally, to run a pilot to see if the model can work. Now, she’s hoping she’ll see the same success here she saw with youth in Thailand. “If we do it well, hopefully, companies will want to do it too,” she said. “It’s a definite win-win for everybody.”