Vancouver Coastal Health’s funding cuts have sent the North Shore’s only publicly funded addiction service scrambling for money to keep its doors open.

West Coast Alternatives Society, winner of the 2009 Provincial Award of Excellence in Addiction, saw $790,000, approximately 80 per cent of its annual budget, slashed.

The society, which treats between 500 to 600 local residents annually, has enough money to run for the next three months, but unless it finds alternative funding for its adults, youth and children drugs and alcohol programs it may be forced to close come January, said Alan Podsadowski, the society’s executive director.

District of North Vancouver Coun. Doug MacKay-Dunn bristled over the addiction treatment service cuts.

“Any time you have the carpet pulled out from a community-based organization that has served the community so well and effectively for so many years it is a very black day for the community — for all of us,” the former cop told The Outlook. “It’s a critical (service on the North Shore).”

North Shore Community Resources’ volunteer program for mental health clients also felt the pinch of government’s tightened wallet. Its entire $43,000 budget was withdrawn by the government.

The program aided people with mental health issues to volunteer in the community and, in some cases, acted as a stepping stone to employment, said Li Boesen, the resource centre’s executive director.

“Those volunteers supported a variety of agencies, including seniors program that also have receive funding cuts,” she said.

Vancouver Coastal Health made the cuts to protect funding to core patient services, the authority’s spokesperson Anna Marie D’Angelo said. The health authority currently has a $90-million deficit.

All West Coast Alternatives Society’s clients will be transferred to in-house programs. “There will be no loss in service,” she said.

The health authority will be able to combine alcohol and drug addition services with mental health programs, a move that follows best practice policy, D’Angelo said. This will also allow patients to have one clinical record, making long-term care planning easier, she added.

Five frontline clinical positions will be added to the authority to deal with the case load.

-with files from Justin Beddall