The B.C. government is creating two new secure facilities to involuntarily hold and treat people with combined mental health and addiction diagnoses, one in Surrey and another in Prince George.
Premier David Eby announced the plans on Friday, July 10, at the site of the new facility in Prince George. Both units will be located in already-existing structures to save costs.
The Prince George centre, previously announced without site details, will be located on Gunn Road in a renovated youth corrections facility. This will provide 72 treatment beds and has a $92-million construction budget.
In Surrey, a 60-bed centre will be located on King George Boulevard at the site of the shuttered John Volken Academy rehabilitation centre, which was closed in 2025 amid abuse allegations.
That unit will add another regional involuntary care centre to the Surrey Pretrial Centre, which has 10 care beds for people awaiting trial, and Maple Ridge’s Spiritwood Homes, formerly Alouette Homes, which has space for 18 people.
The Prince George centre is expected to open in phases beginning in December of 2027 and be fully completed by the end of the following year. Surrey’s new facility has a construction budget of $57 million and is expected to open in the spring of 2028.
B.C. introduced the new involuntary care program in 2024 to provide clarity for providers on how and when to use the Mental Health Act to compel treatment, and to develop places for people to receive long-term care who suffer from concurrent substance use, mental health and brain injury-related disorders
Eby said the government is still working to identify more buildings to renovate and create similar care facilities in the Okanagan and on Vancouver Island.
The province also has another 2,000 beds available for people held involuntarily under the Mental Health Act, but those are mostly in hospital units that do not necessarily have specific services to treat people with substance use addiction and are not designed for long-term care.
Dr. Daniel Vigo, the province’s special advisor on mental health and addictions, says the program has been “successful beyond expectations” as it has provided a permanent home for people who would often otherwise require constant hospital care, including 15 of the province’s most “complex and behaviourally challenged” patients.
Vigo also says the “tide is finally turning” on the toxic drug health emergency partly because the province has “significantly changed tack” on how the crisis is being approached, discontinuing “failed” policies and refocising on treatment.
B.C. saw the fewest toxic drug deaths in a single month in May since 2020.
“We have re-emphasized evidence-based treatment and recovery, restoring physicians’ ability to use the Mental Health Act to treat children and adults with substance disorders when they are mentally impaired,” he said.
But Vigo acknowledged there are other factors at play, including drug supply and how dealers operate, and it is difficult to really know how much to credit this change of tack.