She stops short of calling it a crisis, but the woman who supervises the addictions centre for Abbotsford Community Services has never seen so many clients.

“We have a six-month waiting list for one-to-one counseling,” says Lesley Braithwaite.

Just as the number of people on the streets of Abbotsford is growing, the list for addictions counselling is the longest it has ever been.

Braithwaite says there are a number of contributing reasons why the number of addicts here is spiking:

n Gangs and organized crime increase the availability of drugs – even offering the convenience of dial-a-dope delivery.

n Issues in health care have put people with mental health problems on the streets.

n The tremendous growth in Abbotsford over the past two decades has brought more people of all kinds, and more demands for all services.

The homeless are just the visible symptom of the disease of addiction, but are a small percentage.

“We have lots of functioning addicts. But it (homeless) is a place addicts will end up – once you use up your money,” she says.

While there is a long waiting list for one-to-one counselling, people don’t have to wait for addiction services. The Community Services centre at 2420 Montrose Ave. offers crisis management, day treatment or residential treatment. There are two residential treatment facilities in Abbotsford – Kinghaven for men, and Peardonville House for women.

Addiction is one of the overriding issues in any discussion of homelessness, going hand in hand with mental illness as one of the root causes.

“Half of our clients have concurrent disorders, as well as having an addiction,” she says. “If people are suffering with mental illness, people often find doing drugs makes them feel better.”

She says locking people up in jail and forcing them to clean up is not the answer. They get healthy and feel better for a time, but they backslide.

“They say they’re not going back to that, but they do,” she says, and the reason is that they have not dealt with some of the root causes of their addiction.

She says the city and the province have got it right in trying to put a roof over the heads of addicts living on the streets.

Her first priority in dealing with Abbotsford’s homeless issue would be low barrier or no-barrier housing, with support staff.

“That has to be first on our list.”

It’s literally a matter of life and death. She and her staff lose clients to overdoses, suicides and drug-related medical problems. In the past year, seven clients have died.

The most desperate homeless drug addicts can appear too far gone, Braithwaite says, and others “write them off for dead.”

But counsellors also bear witness to amazing transformations.

“I’ve seen people get in treatment for a month and you don’t recognize them.”