“This Is What Collapse Looks Like”: MLA Claire Rattée Joins Grieving Son to Demand Accountability After Death at Foxglove Supportive Housing
Victoria, BC – Claire Rattée, Conservative MLA for Skeena and Official Opposition Critic for Mental Health and Addictions, stood today with Tyler Gibbs — the son of Diane Chandler, a 60-year-old woman who died alone in her room at Foxglove, a provincially-funded supportive housing facility operated by RainCity Housing in Surrey. Her body remained undiscovered for 11 days.
“What happened to Diane Chandler is not just a tragedy, it’s a failure of every safeguard that was supposed to protect her,” said Rattée. “This government calls it supportive housing. But where was the support? Where was the oversight? Where was the care?”
Gibbs only learned of the details surrounding his mother’s death once he inquired during her cremation a month later. During that same time, Tyler learned that the facility had mistaken Diane for another tenant during a wellness check, another resident who tragically passed away a few days after this incident.
“If the staff thought that this other resident was Diane, where did they think that other resident was? This proves that the systems that they have in place to look after the safety and wellbeing of individuals is not effective” said Rattée.
“In 2017, Shawn Richards was found dead in similar conditions in government-run supportive housing. Seven years later, we see escalating open drug use, no permanent staff, and zero accountability. Things haven’t changed. They’ve gotten worse.”
Conservative MLAs are calling for a full, independent review of all deaths in provincially funded supportive housing and for a shift away from warehousing people with addictions in unsafe environments with rampant drug use.
“We’re not saying people don’t deserve housing,” said Rattée.
The housing minister has insinuated time and again that the Conservative Party of BC is against supportive housing, but it is the exact opposite.
“We want supportive housing that is actually supporting our most vulnerable people, not forgetting them, or simply warehousing them” said Rattée.
“This is about compassion,” she added. “This is about wrap-around care, not abandonment. It’s about treating people with dignity, not pretending neglect is support.”
Despite past promises, the government has failed to enforce even its own wellness check policies. The question now is no longer whether these deaths are preventable, it’s how many more will happen before this government finally acts.
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