dunham house ‘is a saviour’ for many trying to beat addiction. so why is it so underfunded?

darren describes his treatment at dunham house this past february as the first time in his 40 years that he felt safe. the facility in the eastern townships is quebec’s only all-english residential recovery centre treating people with dual diagnosis addiction and mental health disorders. “dunham house is a saviour for a person like me,” he said, referring to his struggle with childhood trauma and addiction. darren asked that his last name not be published to maintain his privacy. “i felt so safe and secure and i spoke about stuff that i thought i’d never speak about.” he was a “system child,” he said, growing up in foster care and group homes after his mother abandoned him to quebec’s youth protection system at the age of seven. he was 10 when he says he started drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes and weed at a group home. adulthood turned into a bumpy road.darren says he had no idea that dunham house existed until a friend told him about it this year. his other discovery: a social worker told him he had to go on welfare for the government to allow him into a publicly funded rehab bed at the centre.

it’s not widely known, but quebec’s “public” inpatient rehab system relies on dozens of independent non-profit treatment centres with different programs operating alongside government-run centres. in addition to the public system, there are also fully private rehabs that charge clients thousands of dollars a month. but dunham house and other non-profit treatment centres, including francophone and bilingual centres, operate at a deficit because the government doesn’t fully cover the cost of inpatient treatment for even the narrow category of welfare recipients. the centres accept the individuals at no charge as part of the funding agreements. that leaves the treatment centres themselves to fill the financial gap. many centres raise donations or develop money-generating sidelines, such as opening private beds, to help cover the cost of housing and treating their vulnerable clients. public resources to deal with addiction are inadequate and provincial funding for non-profit treatment centres is as meagre today as it was when dunham house was established almost a decade ago, says its founder and president, daniel colson. “where we’re heading is not very encouraging,” he said. “we don’t get any more help or support today from the quebec government than we did nine years ago.”

in the meantime, the addiction and homelessness crises have worsened. across quebec, the annual number of hospital emergency department visits due to illicit drugs, prescription medications and alcohol has increased in the past decade, the institut national de santé publique du québec (inspq) reports. the number of er visits for suspected opioid poisoning alone increased from 1,095 in 2016 (a rate of 13.3 per 100,000 people) to 1,775 in 2025 (a rate of 19.9 per 100,000 people), it says. colson, a retired lawyer and executive, established dunham house in the town of the same name after finding no resources in english to help his son. the centre sits on 85 acres of land and offers a gym, music room, art, walking trails, equine-assisted therapy and horticultural program. “the reasons for starting it are as legitimate and urgent today as they were nine, 10 years ago,” colson said. "i think that we’re doing the government’s job at virtually no cost to them. but we do it much better in a much nicer place.” dunham house receives no funding from the health and social service agencies on the island of montreal even though nearly three-quarters of its clients are from there. in fact, dunham house opened an outpatient counselling office in notre-dame-de-grâce two years ago to provide aftercare to its many montreal clients.many montreal clients are referred by hospitals and doctors on the island. others learn of the facility through word of mouth and its website.

the provincial health ministry and employment and social solidarity ministry are the sources of public financing for non-profit treatment places like dunham house. employment and social solidarity pays a daily rate to centres to admit people on welfare at no charge. still, the $62.43 per day that dunham house receives for each social aid recipient covers less than half the cost of taking in the individual, dunham house executive director victoria della porta said. she also doesn’t understand why the government only subsidizes welfare recipients for treatment, she said. “how about people on a low income or on pension or on employment insurance?” della porta asked. “why have we left that whole piece out?” the health ministry also provides only partial financing, even if it requires the centres to be government-accredited and undergo regular recertification. dunham house is receiving four equal payments of about $43,000 this year from the health program called aide financière pour les ressources offrant de l’hébergement en dépendance (afrhd). the funding does little to cover salaries and operations and yet the government’s accreditation requirements call for centres to have a minimum number of staff, della porta said.

dunham house is a registered charity, and it makes up for inadequate government financing with donations and 12 private beds it opened two years ago to raise money for its 26 public-funded beds. however, “we still face a substantial financial gap,” della porta said. non-profit treatment centres have also complained in recent years of funding cuts and delayed payments by the government. (one exception in the public system is portage, a bilingual centre that has a unique agreement with quebec that directly funds it like a government treatment centre.)the association québécoise des centres d’intervention en dépendance (aqcid), which represents 63 non-profit residential treatment centres in the province, has repeatedly denounced the provincial funding system as inadequate as some centres have closed. “most non-profit treatment centres are in survival mode and that doesn’t allow them to improve quality, develop skills and pay their staff enough,” said bruno ferrari, who is president of the association’s standing committee on treatment. he’s also executive director of vilavi, a bilingual non-profit treatment centre with 42 beds in terrebonne. “the real savings that the government should try to achieve is to have people recover from addiction because these people cost a fortune to society,” he said. his association’s newest concern is over changes to the afrhd funding formula. the health ministry has yet to explain what weight is being given to different criteria, ferrari said. until 2025, the calculation for afrhd funding depended on the number of beds occupied by welfare recipients. the health ministry has indicated the new formula will look at overall occupancy, among other criteria, ferrari said. but afrhd funding is low — he estimates it works out to $20 per funded client per day for vilavi. the actual daily cost to the non-profit to house and treat clients is $126, he said. a health ministry spokesperson told the gazette that afrhd financial assistance is being calculated for each centre “using a specific algorithm that does not directly take into account the number of people receiving” social aid. meanwhile, the $62.43 per day coming from the employment and social solidarity ministry is still only available for recipients of social aid, ferrari noted. the financial crunch for centres occurs amid a drug crisis that is compounded by a dramatic increase in the unhoused population since covid. homelessness and mental health issues like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder intersect with addiction as people try to ease their pain and suffering with drugs and alcohol. across quebec, pharmacies dispensed 14,642 naloxone kits in the first three months of this year alone, the inspq reports. the kits are used to reverse the life-threatening effects of an opioid overdose.meanwhile, urgences-santé paramedics say they’re currently seeing one of the worst starts to summer of the last decade in terms of naloxone administration in montreal and laval. there were 596 deaths from suspected opioid or other drug poisoning in quebec between april 2025 and march 2026, according to the inspq.della porta says that dunham house is seeing increased admission requests from montrealers, no doubt due to the crisis. but clients like darren have to go on welfare to get a public bed. dunham house has plans to contact the health and social services agencies on montreal island to request additional funding, she said.“i wish i could put my hand on my heart and say, ‘we started (dunham house), but people need us less and less because the government is finally doing what they should do and providing these services to the english-speaking community,'" colson said. “well, they’re not.”