A key measurement to success among OEI clients is the well-being their operations bring to their respective communities. Rarely has that connection been so well defined and so personal as with OEI’s newest client, Connective Support Society (Connective).

Connective helps those in need find housing, employment, justice, outreach, and a host of other community services. The organization’s 950-plus employees operate 60 programs and residences across BC and in the Yukon. Connective’s stated vision is to bring about “A safe, healthy, and inclusive community for all.”

The Society has hired OEI and Applications Management Ltd. to prepare a study that will clarify the sum of Connective’s complex impact to stakeholders who may only know the organization for its local offerings or who may assume it is government-run. The report may be used for explaining the organization to users, the public, news media, municipalities, and the federal, territorial and provincial governments.

OEI will help tell that story from multiple perspectives: a summary of services and the environments in which Connective staff operate, economic impacts, and social return on investment (SROI). But because Connective’s work comes down to the impacts felt by individuals at an extremely personal level, the experiences of Connective’s end users will be front and centre.

And those served by Connective are literally legion. Programs from Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, Prince George in the Cariboo, Kamloops in the North Okanagan, Whitehorse in the Yukon, and Vancouver aided 6,000 clients in 2024. That same year, the Society hired 195 new employees and opened more than 500 housing units.

Leadership’s concerns range from ensuring the safety of staff and clients to making strategic property management decisions that will ensure long-term growth.

Despite intractable challenges — the toxic drug crisis, unaffordable housing, food insecurity, and the lack of supportive housing — Connective’s operations and its service offerings continue to grow with dozens of frontline services and housing for those most in need. For example, over just the last fiscal year, Connective Nanaimo opened Cornerstone, a 51-unit supportive housing building. Working with BC Housing and the builders, Connective realized a long-term goal to provide residents with a permanent home and several 24/7 supports, including two meals per day, skills training, health and wellness support, and referrals to recovery services.

As CEO Mark Miller and Board Chair Jayce Allen told Connective stakeholders in the 2023-24 annual report letter: “Creating a better future for our communities takes time, patience, and a willingness to be tested in increasingly complex ways … Connective has risen to the occasion in the way we always have – by showing up, expertise and humility in hand, ready and committed to doing what needs to be done.”

During this period Connective also opened Aurora House, a specialized residential support program for Indigenous youth living with developmental disabilities, in Maple Ridge.

The Society assumed operation of My Home Place in Dawson Creek when the original operators stepped aside, and BC Housing chose Connective to take over to avoid service disruption. My Home Place offers permanent supportive housing to 32 adults at risk of homelessness.