Greater Victoria Acting Together’s unions, faith, service, environmental and student organisations representing tens of thousands of people have had a busy year and many successes! We have supported decision makers to take steps to protect us from a changing climate, address affordable housing and find community first ways to address opioid overdose deaths.

Members of the Mental Health and Addiction Research Team met with a team in Eugene, Oregon to learn about its success in developing community support for a successful alternative for crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction. They also studied some Canadian examples.

My point of view is that if GVAT is to make a difference it will do so because its action research teams have developed holistic views of the problems we seek to address and have revealed the root causes of the problems we have identified. Such understanding can provide meaningful context to the concrete proposals that we make.