Solid’s services began humbly, in 2007, with one employee working across the street from VicPD providing drop-in HIV and HepC support groups and daily syringe recovery around the community. Over the next ten years, our services steadily grew to include our four HOPPS sites, our North Park Drop-In, and various support groups and collaborative projects in Greater Victoria. In 2017, we began a period of rapid growth to help address the overdose epidemic, calling on our long-standing, part-time volunteers to create a team of highly committed and experienced overdose response workers.

Now, the Solid team has expanded to over 110 paid employees, approximately 70 peer volunteers, and our society serves thousands of community members. Our staff provides experiential street support services to reduce the harms associated with poverty, substance use, and housing insecurity in Victoria and Courtenay. We operate primarily through contracts and partnerships with the City of Victoria, Ministry of Health, Island Health, BC Housing, and First Nations Health Authority.

Among the services Solid provides:

• Overdose prevention services at nine sites on Vancouver Island,

• Outreach to homeless encampments,

• Housing case management and housing support,

• Health access,

• Detox/treatment,

• Indigenous-led cultural programs,

• Overnight sheltering and drop-in access supports, services and referrals. 

All of these services are provided by and for people with lived experience of street life and the circumstances surrounding it, this acts as a form of vocational therapy and psycho-social healing for our members who want the opportunity to become Solid staff or volunteers.

Solid provides our services on the traditional, unceded territories of the Lkwungen (Songhees and Esquimalt) peoples. We acknowledge that we are guests on these lands. We are committed to building relationships with local nations to ensure our community work meets the needs of Indigenous peoples and settlers who are suffering from lack of access to basic needs such as housing, health, and community supports on these lands. We are committed to maintaining an organization led by, and for, many urban Indigenous People.