Fatal overdose sparks changes in B.C. supportive housing procedures

A supportive housing facility in Surrey where a 60-year-old woman died of a drug overdose but was not found for 11 days has implemented changes to ensure tenants are correctly identified by staff during daily checks.

"This tragedy has been a hard hit for all of Diane’s family and friends, and for our team.  There are no words to console the grief when we lose someone we love, and this has been made so much more difficult when mistakes were made that led to the delay in finding Diane," said a spokesperson for Foxglove.

Diane Chandler died in her room at Foxglove Supportive Housing in Whalley in April 2024. The facility, which opened in 2022, features 130 units, comprising 66 supportive housing homes, 34 complex care beds, and 30 shelter beds.

Chandler's death has prompted calls for change. At a press conference Wednesday (May 28) in the B.C. legislature in Victoria, Diane's son, Tyler Gibbs, spoke alongside the opposition critic for mental health and addictions, MLA Claire Rattée, and the shadow minister for public safety and solicitor general, Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko, asking for more supports for people living in supportive housing.

Ravi Kahlon, B.C.'s Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, said during the May 7 question period in the legislature, "the staff who were working there believed they saw the individual and put a check mark beside their name, when in fact it was someone else. It was a mistake made by staff, unacceptable mistake, in my opinion, that being said, we've taken considerable steps to address that."

"We know that wellness checks save lives. That’s why we amended Provincial Residential Tenancy regulation (RTR) to allow for wellness checks if a tenant hasn’t been seen for 48 hours.  My ministry works closely with BC Housing and their operating partners to ensure appropriate health and safety measures are in place to protect the well-being of those they serve. We continue to look at ways to make supportive housing safe for the residents and staff.” 

The spokesperson for Foxglove told the Now-Leader in an email that, "We want to share with you that the loss of Diane has not landed lightly on our team and that we feel the heaviness of our mistake."

The review highlighted some areas where improvements were needed.

"This review highlighted that our procedures for marking tenants as ‘seen’ didn’t fully consider the cumulative impacts of having a building with 141 tenants, operating three programs in one site, challenges like high turnover of staff resulting in higher numbers of causal staff, and how busy the program gets when guests and family members come to visit. All of this impacted our focus and our ability to ensure we have properly identified each tenant."

"The review resulted in several new and updated procedures, including a redundancy system where the management at the facility reviews daily the 'seen' list and looks for any missing or inaccurate information, as well as a review of the list at shift change to ensure that the continuum of care is highlighted across shifts."

In addition to staff filling out a "seen" list of tenants, the list now includes notes about the person and "what their interaction was like." The facility is also piloting technology that will help "reduce human errors in monitoring people coming and going from the building."

"Foxglove is low-barrier supportive housing, which means that people who choose to live there can be actively using drugs and/or alcohol.  Foxglove also operates a 24/7 peer witnesses overdose prevention service on site and had 101,459 interactions with program participants last year and reversed almost 300 overdoses," noted the spokesperson. "The peer team at Foxglove actively engages people who live in the building to follow a safer using plan and to use one of the many options available 24/7 in the building to reduce the risks of using drugs in this time of a significant toxic drug supply."

Diane's son, Tyler Gibbs, said the government failed his mom.

"My mom deserved better," Gibbs said. "I know the condolences won't bring her back, but if something can change under this because of her, that would be something and something she would be happy about her legacy living on through that."

Diane's death was not only a tragedy but a failure, Rattée said. 

“It’s a failure of every safeguard that was supposed to protect her,” Rattée said. “This government calls it supportive housing, but where was the support? Where was the oversight? Where was the care?” 

Rattée said the issue is not around wellness checks but around "encouraging open drug use in supportive housing facilities and warehousing addiction."