‘In dire need’: rural healing centre pleads for funding

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This article was published 22/04/2025 (186 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mental health and addictions specialists in rural Manitoba are pleading with the province to reconsider funding their “in-house healing program” despite its deficit.

Otter Home Inc., a 24-hour facility with 16 beds and day programs, submitted a funding proposal to the ministry of housing, addictions and homelessness in the fall.

Co-founders Catherine Arnold and Tess McPhee sought roughly $900,000 to end their waitlist for daytime mental health, addictions recovery and family reunification services in Carberry.

“Our communities are in dire need of services, such as these… This could be a hub of support — one that meets the government’s current mandates, their agendas, but ultimately, in order to do that, we need to be collaborative,” said Teague Luhr, participant co-ordinator and support mentor at the facility.

Otter Home currently relies on private donations and financial support via participants’ First Nation band and council offices. Its eight-week residential program costs $266.67 per day, per its website.

Provincial officials have indicated they believe in the wraparound supports being offered but they cannot provide funding because the centre is in the red, said Arnold, a social worker who designed it with McPhee, a psychiatric nurse.

Arnold questioned why the facility is being held to a different standard than the province, especially given she and her co-founder are responsible for any financial struggles and losses.

The NDP government’s latest budget forecasts its 2025 deficit to be $794 million, although that figure could be far larger, depending on the fallout of U.S. tariffs.

Progressive Conservative MLA Jodie Byram raised the rejection of the hub that operates out of her constituency, Agassiz, during question period Tuesday. Arnold, McPhee and Luhr were in the gallery.

“We have not shut the door on them. We need these types of services in our province,” Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith later told the Free Press.

Smith likened the model to the proposal for the Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre in Winnipeg. The province announced last week it would earmark $1.5 million to build and launch the Fort Garry site, which aims to help women dealing with addictions.

While noting her office is continuing to work with Otter Home to move its application along, she said every applicant must follow certain criteria.

She declined to provide details about the initial dismissal, citing the applicant’s third-party status, but indicated the site’s managers “know what they have to do.”

McPhee urged the province to revisit its decision.

Otter Home has unique and in-demand children’s programs that are run by play therapists and teachers who can create individualized education plans to support families, she added.

The organization’s written proposal touts its wide-ranging team of specialists, their trauma-informed and attachment-focused approaches, and ongoing initiatives to address the impacts of colonization and residential schools.

Otter Home runs Indigenous language classes, connects participants to traditional ceremonies and host elders, among other cultural activities and health-care services.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca