A decision has been made to cut funding for the BRIDGE program at Island Community Mental Health. BRIDGE is a psychosocial rehabilitation program that helps individuals integrate into the community by learning coping skills and building meaningful connections.

As someone who has benefited greatly from this program, I am reaching out to ask for the public’s support.

Unless we raise our voices, this vital lifeline will be severed by September 30th.

The BRIDGE program is more than just a service, it is a vital form of preventative medicine. The program helps prevents crisises by providing a second place that is rooted in connection, cultivating social connections, coping skills and more.

It is an upstream investment that saves both lives and public funds. According to Chris Forester, Executive Director of Island Community Mental Health, funding is being cut as Island Health is undergoing financial scrutiny and implements broad 15% program reductions. Yet, there has been no clear explanation as to why BRIDGE, one of the only flexible, low-barrier programs for adults has been chosen. The decision feels arbitrary, and its consequences will be far-reaching.

Why BRIDGE Matters

1. It fills a critical gap: In a system focused largely on youth and geriatric care, adult mental health services are already scarce and truly accessible ones are even rarer. Eliminating BRIDGE will widen this gap, leaving more people without direction, without help, and without hope.
2. It prevents crisis-level costs: Cutting this program may save money in the short term, but it will result in far greater costs down the line in the form of more ER visits, more hospitalizations, and more emergency interventions. The math simply doesn’t add up.
3. It serves those who can’t “start over”: Many BRIDGE participants are neurodivergent or live with persistent mental health challenges. For them, starting over isn’t an option. Trust and safety take time to build and BRIDGE is one of the few places where that foundation has been created.
4. It teaches life skills that allows individuals to contribute to society: BRIDGE helps participants learn essential coping and interpersonal skills that can prevent crisis situations, support employment, and reduce contact with the justice system.

I speak not just for myself, but for our entire BRIDGE community when I say:

BRIDGE is the one string keeping our kite in the air. It is the bridge across the murky waters of our struggles. If that bridge disappears, we fall into those waters and we fall prey to what lives in them.

This isn’t just about losing a service. It’s about losing the community we’ve built through hardship, the family we’ve created in a world that too often leaves people behind

At BRIDGE, we lift each other up. We travel from Central Saanich, from Langford, all to gather at this program, because there are no other programs like this. We’ve been told that “other programs,” like Connections Place, are alternatives. But that’s simply not true. Connections Place follows a rigid, work-ordered model that does not serve the same population. Other suggested programs require adjacent psychiatric care or impose access barriers that BRIDGE never did. To claim these services are interchangeable is clinically inaccurate and ethically wrong.

Without BRIDGE, we don’t just lose a program. We lose a lifeline. We lose each other. A community will be displaced. The foundation of safety we have worked so hard to build will crumble.

I have also attached two personal impact statements that speak directly to the lived experiences of participants who rely on BRIDGE. I urge you to read them.

This is a small investment but the return is enormous. Not just economically, but in human dignity, wellness, and hope.

Thank you for taking the time to hear our voices.

With gratitude,

Karman Tatla