People First Radio – December 04, 2025People First Radio – December 04, 2025
People First Radio
Community leaders discuss sober recovery housing in Victoria, a youth-focused prevention model in Cape Breton and Indigenous land-based programming on Vancouver Island. The conversation emphasises changing social conditions, boosting protective factors and placing youth voice and leadership at the centre of long-term responses to addiction.
0:00•5 Dec 2025
Housing, Hope and Youth Power: How Communities Are Rethinking Addiction
Episode Overview
- Publicly funded, low-rent sober housing can fill a critical gap for people leaving detox and treatment who cannot afford private recovery homes.
- Relapse is treated as part of recovery, with pathways back to treatment and other Kool-Aid shelters rather than immediate exclusion.
- The Icelandic Prevention Model in Cape Breton focuses on increasing protective factors like opportunity, arts, sport and family time instead of just attacking risk.
- Youth voices and leadership are central, from designing interventions and a youth Congress to leading land-based programmes in Indigenous communities.
- Strong relationships with caring adults, cultural reconnection and meaningful responsibility on the land are highlighted as powerful protective factors against addiction.
“Society is the patient.”
Get ready to meet people who are trying to change the conditions that feed addiction rather than just reacting to crises one person at a time. People First Radio brings together three very different but connected stories: sober housing in Victoria, youth substance use prevention in Cape Breton, and land-based Indigenous youth work on Vancouver Island.
It’s aimed at anyone curious about practical, community-level responses to addiction, poverty, and mental health – especially those working in services or thinking about their own recovery environment. First up, housing leader Angela Moran from Victoria Cool Aid Society breaks down a new 20-unit, publicly funded sober housing project for men in recovery. She explains how it fills a “major gap in our housing continuum,” using a peer-based, light-staffing model for people who’ve completed detox and treatment.
She’s frank about relapse too, saying, “relapse is part of recovery,” and outlines pathways back to treatment rather than automatic eviction. The focus then shifts across the country as Trevor Den Hartog of Undercurrent Youth Society talks about adapting the Icelandic Prevention Model in Cape Breton.
He links youth substance use to “lack of opportunity” and extreme child poverty, and shares plans like youth-led intervention design, a potential “youth Congress,” and a long-term mindset where “society is the patient,” not just young people. Finally, Indigenous leaders Everett Watson and Dr Ricardo Manmohan from The Nuu-Chah-Nulth Youth Warrior Family Society share how land-based, youth-led programmes already echo many Icelandic ideas.
They highlight protective factors such as strong relationships with non-parent adults, time on the land, and real leadership roles for youth. As Watson puts it, “by shielding them from those leadership decisions, you're really just handicapping them in the future.” You’ll come away thinking less about fixing individuals and more about reshaping communities – so what part of your own environment might need to change first?
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