Mothers in recovery are reuniting with their children, thanks to housing designed to help

Leaping through the courtyard of her new home in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, 10-year-old Serenity shows off all the things she likes about the place. 

She bounces a basketball, turns a cartwheel, points to the cubby where she puts her bookbag at the after-school program. 

But when asked about why she likes living here, she brings up something else entirely — her mom. 

"I really love her, I was born with her," she said. 

"It was kind of sad not having her when I was living with my grandma. I'm way more happy because I'm living with my actual parent." 

Serenity's mom, Katy, is a recovering drug addict. When Serenity was seven she was placed in the custody of her paternal grandmother because of Katy's drug use.  The pair reunited 10 months ago, something made possible because of where they live. 

They have a two-bedroom apartment in the Union Gospel Mission's Women & Family's Centre, a seven-storey building with 63 units of supportive housing for women, 33 of which are designed especially for mothers in recovery and their children. 

The concept, which is largely funded by private donations: keep families together, create supports to help them heal, and break the generational cycle of addiction. Some floors are dedicated to women in treatment, and others provide supportive housing once that treatment is completed. 

"I really love this building a lot, I think it's saved my life big time," said Katy, who started using drugs at 14 and spent much of her own childhood in foster care. CBC News agreed to use the residents' and their children's first names only to prevent harassment related to the stigma of drug addiction. 

The 36-year old gestures to the window, and says if she wasn't able to live with Serenity she'd be "out there, using, and probably dead by now." 

Given that Katy is a former heroin user, and British Columbia's toxic drug crisis continues to kill close to seven people each day, that blunt assessment isn't off base. 

Women who use drugs and live on the streets face additional dangers, including sexual violence. Addicted mothers feel shame and face stigma, explains Tara MacDonald, the director of the centre where where Katy and Serenity live. So far, seven families have been reunited at the centre, not counting the mothers who have been allowed to stay with their infants.

"If we can keep children with their parents, and we can help people learn to parent … if we can remove those obstacles and barriers," said MacDonald, "that's how things change." 

The Union Gospel Mission's (UGM) Women & Family Centre is one of a growing number of facilities across the country reflecting changing attitudes toward addicted mothers as the toxic drug crisis intensifies.