Vancouver's Road to Recovery model cuts addiction treatment wait to one day

What is the background?

Long waits between a person deciding to seek addiction treatment and actually getting a bed have long been identified as a point where people can lose motivation or access to care. Addiction treatment wait times Vancouver dropped sharply after the Road to Recovery model changed how the system handles urgent cases.

What happened?

Since Road to Recovery launched in Vancouver in 2023, wait times for clients triaged as urgent fell to one day by 2025, while clients triaged as routine got access to a bed within eight days on average. The model is now expanding to all health regions across British Columbia, moving beyond its original Vancouver base.

Alongside this, Vancouver Coastal Health’s Peer Navigator Program connects people with lived experience of mental illness, substance use, or addiction to services including income assistance, legal aid, housing, and health care.

How did it happen?

The CMHA Vancouver-Fraser Branch runs the Peer Navigator Program with funding from Vancouver Coastal Health, staffing it specifically with people who understand the systems they are helping others navigate because they have used those systems themselves. This differs from a purely clinical referral system, where a caseworker without lived experience directs a client to services without necessarily understanding the practical barriers involved.

The Hope to Health Clinic in downtown Vancouver similarly provides wraparound support from peers, making it easier for people to stick with treatment plans and access the social support that keeps recovery on track after initial treatment.

Why does it matter?

A one-day wait for urgent addiction treatment is a fundamentally different system from one where urgent cases wait weeks — in addiction care specifically, the window between a person asking for help and receiving it is often narrow before circumstances change. Cutting that wait to one day removes one of the most commonly cited reasons people fall out of the treatment pipeline before they start.

Expanding a model that started in one city to cover all of British Columbia’s health regions means the same urgent-case standard becomes a province-wide expectation, not a Vancouver-only advantage.

What were the key results?

• Road to Recovery model launched in Vancouver in 2023
• Urgent-triage wait times fell to one day by 2025
• Routine-triage clients get bed access within eight days on average
• Model now expanding to all health regions across British Columbia
• Peer Navigator Program run by CMHA Vancouver-Fraser Branch, funded by Vancouver Coastal Health
• Peer navigators connect clients to income assistance, legal aid, housing, and health services
• Hope to Health Clinic provides wraparound peer support in downtown Vancouver

What happens next?

The Province of British Columbia plans to track wait times as Road to Recovery rolls out to additional health regions.

Vancouver Coastal Health will continue expanding the Peer Navigator Program’s capacity based on demand.

Provincial health officials are expected to report on expansion progress across BC’s health regions through 2026.

Addiction support organisations in Vancouver said they will monitor whether the one-day urgent wait standard holds as the model scales provincewide.