After nearly 25 hard years of struggling with addiction and mental health issues, Toni’s life blossomed when she chose to work through recovery and was given the opportunity to live in affordable housing at UGM.
“I got clean a little over six years ago from a lifetime of abuse and drug addiction,” Toni says. “I spent my whole life in addiction – since I was 14 – and I cleaned up when I was 39.” As part of her recovery plan, Toni moved into UGM’s sober-living affordable housing at Maurice McElrea Place (MMP) on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It was a safe place for Toni to live during the early days of her recovery, and not only did it help her stay sober, but the relationships she formed with UGM staff there opened up a whole new world for Toni.
“I’d been on Disability for a great many years and never had the need to work or any expectation that I’d ever be able to work or be work-worthy. But I wasn’t [at MMP] for more than a year when UGM staff came to me and said there was a position available at the Mission and we think you might be right for it,” she recalls. “It blew me away.”
So after years of physical, mental health and addiction challenges, Toni started working in Reception at UGM. She comes to a job everyday that she loves, and in which she feels capable, involved, needed, and appreciated. And though she loves her current position at UGM, she’s looking to the future. “I’m at school now taking Community Counselling. So in two years time, I will have a Community Counselling Certificate and I’ll be able to give back in a new way at UGM.”
The simple gift of housing helped Toni get back on her feet and gave her a new lease on life.
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