Bruce Oake Recovery Centre enters home stretch

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This article was published 13/10/2020 (1877 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Construction of a west Winnipeg addiction treatment centre is coming together quickly, with the facility targeting a spring opening.

The Bruce Oake Recovery Centre briefly opened to the public for a mid-construction tour Tuesday (ground was broken on the building in August 2019).

Watching the project, which has raised $15 million of its $16-million fundraising goal, come together has been “overwhelming” for sports broadcaster and centre co-founder Scott Oake, who lost his son Bruce Oake to a heroin overdose in 2011.

“Look how far we’ve come, the end is in sight,” he said. “But actually not the end — it’ll be the start line, the point in which we can start saving lives.”

The 32,000-square-foot facility being built where the Vimy Arena once stood at 255 Hamilton Ave., includes space for 50 people in 25 bedrooms, a kitchen and dining area, a gymnasium and smudging room for residents. While originally slated to open in fall 2021, Oake said it could be officially open in May, or even earlier.

A $500,000 donation from local payroll services company Payworks was also announced Tuesday.

“While this initiative is progressing extremely well, there’s still lots of work to be done and we strongly encourage any organization to come forward and to be part of supporting the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre,” Payworks chief executive officer JP Perron said.

The Manitoba government contributed $3.5 million to the project in June.

The recovery centre sits in the residential neighbourhood of Crestview. After city council approved the use of the land in January 2019, the project initially faced protest from some who argued the centre would affect property values and introduce crime into the neighbourhood.

In the 20 months since, “I think along the way, our message began to sink in: the message being that you have nothing to fear from the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, and the men of the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre will be good neighbours,” Oake said Tuesday.

The next goal is to wrap up the current fundraising campaign and to start another to focus on operating costs. There will be space, ideally, to house people safely should COVID-19 remain a concern when the doors open, Oake said, and, if anything, affects of the novel coronavirus pandemic will be part of the increasing demand for addiction rehabilitation options in Canada.

“Factor in the pandemic, depression, jobs lost, et cetera, and substance abuse going up, we know that we’ll be full here,” he said. “We expected that anyway, but the demand for a bed at the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre will be far greater than it was when we started this project.”

The site will offer 24-7 scheduling to residents, which must be men over the age of 18 who suffer from a drug or alcohol addiction and are clean upon entry. Oake said the hope is having such a space available will be a haven for families going through what his own family did.

“It’s making our boy’s life mean something, and that was part of our goal when we started,” he said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: malakabas_