The BC Home Share Review: When “Default” Housing Becomes a System Under Strain
In November 2025, the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction in British Columbia released an external review of the Community Living BC (CLBC) Home Share program. Conducted by Tamar Consultancy with Professor Tim Stainton and colleagues, the review was triggered by the coroner’s inquest into the death of Florence Girard and asked a blunt question: are current safeguards and standards enough to keep people safe and support a good life in Home Share?
A unique and overloaded model
Home Share in BC is unusual by international standards. Institutions have been closed for some time, and Home Share has become the province’s largest community living option — a situation the review notes “doesn’t exist in any other jurisdiction.” About 4,300 people are funded to live in Home Share, with hundreds more on waitlists and more than 19,000 adults outside any funded residential support, signalling deep, long-term pressure on the system. What was meant to be one option among many has effectively become the default, often chosen because alternatives are scarce, not because it is necessarily the best fit for the person. At the same time, key features that make family-based models safe — robust individual planning, careful matching, and strong informal networks — have been weakened over time. The review’s central warning is stark: “Even the best of monitoring and safeguards cannot protect against vulnerabilities created by an underfunded system.”
Method and scope
The team drew on briefings from CLBC, internal and external documents, a public email line, targeted interviews, and an Advisory Committee that included self-advocates, families, providers and sector organizations. They were asked to focus on safety, quality of life, and oversight mechanisms in Home Share — not to set specific pay rates, but to look at how funding decisions affect safety and quality.
Five Key Directions and 29 recommendations
Instead of offering a single “fix”, the review organizes its findings into five “Key Directions” – the pieces that must work together if Home Share is to be safe, sustainable and rights-respecting:
1. Standards, Safety and Quality of Life, Monitoring and Oversight 2. Individual Planning, Coordination and Review 3. Key Roles, Qualifications, Training and Supervision 4. Community Living Options 5. Broader Structural Issues
Underneath these sit 29 recommendations: 10 under standards and monitoring, 8 under planning, 5 under roles and training, 3 under living options, and 3 under broader structural issues. In short, the review argues that paperwork and policies are not the main gap; implementation, resources, and system design are. Policies are largely in place, but without regulation, transparency and consistent enforcement, safeguards remain uneven across regions.
The provider at the centre of the system
At the heart of the report is the recognition that Home Share is built on people opening their own homes and lives. A “well supported, reasonably compensated and appropriately skilled network of providers” is described as one of the most important elements of a safe and positive Home Share experience.
Yet multiple pressures converge on providers:
· People with more complex lives — including behavioural, health and mental-health needs — are increasingly being matched to Home Share. · Turnover of Home Share providers and key staff is a major concern, driven by rising costs, growing complexity, and erosion of allied and community supports. · The broader system of crisis, health and mental-health support is “less available”, shifting risk and workload into the home. Although the review did not set pay levels, it explicitly questions whether current compensation models truly support safe, sustainable arrangements in complex cases.
Planning, respite and training: invisible workload
In theory, Home Share providers offer daily support and a home, while CLBC facilitators and agency coordinators handle system navigation and planning. In practice, the review notes that expectations are often unclear, and providers may be responsible for coordinating community access without the time, skills or backing to do so.
Several “silent” workload issues emerge:
· Respite: small, fixed respite allocations come with significant administrative and payroll burdens, which many providers find impractical. Limited, hard-to-access respite contributes directly to fatigue and burnout.
· Training: training requirements are uneven, and there is little or no financial recognition for the time and effort providers spend developing skills — even though more complex profiles clearly demand better training.
· Planning: individual planning has weakened and is split between CLBC and coordinators. Planning is increasingly triggered by crisis rather than done proactively, leaving providers to manage escalating situations without a coherent, shared roadmap.
The recommendations respond by calling for stronger CLBC facilitator roles, clear division of responsibilities between CLBC and agencies, a standard planning template for every Home Share, and formal recognition of the training providers need for specific individuals.
Beyond BC: what other systems do
The review includes a substantial jurisdictional scan. While models differ, some patterns stand out: · United Kingdom – Shared Lives: A regulated adult social care model where people live as part of a carer’s family, supported by strong national inspection frameworks and an outcomes tool (“My Shared Life”). Carers are self-employed with a specific tax relief, and Shared Lives is consistently rated highly for safety and quality. · United States – HCBS waiver host-home and adult foster care: Federal rules (HCBS Settings Rule) set rights-based expectations, while some states (e.g. Pennsylvania, New York) combine intensive inspection, unannounced visits and clear incident-reporting timelines. · Other Canadian provinces: Provinces like Ontario and Quebec have more explicitly regulated frameworks or collective approaches for host-family care, with clearer inspection standards and, in some cases, more structured funding grids tied to assessed need. Across these examples, family-based models are generally seen as positive for autonomy, relationships and community inclusion — but only when backed by sustained investment in safeguards, data systems and workforce development, and when they sit within a genuine continuum of options rather than being the only practical choice.
Structural issues: health, housing and money
The last group of recommendations looks beyond CLBC’s internal policies. The review argues that Home Share cannot be made safe and sustainable if allied health, mental-health and crisis services are not reliably available, and if housing scarcity forces the program to stretch beyond what it was designed to do.
Key proposals include:
· Re-establishing health and nurse consultant roles for Community Living, strengthening HSCL and DDMHS, and potentially consolidating them under a provincial health authority with a dedicated budget. · Developing a housing and support strategy with the Ministry of Housing and BC Housing, to reduce over-reliance on Home Share and build a continuum of living options, including specialized Home Share with enhanced pay and support for complex cases. · Conducting a detailed review of CLBC’s budget needs and increasing funding to a level that can deliver safe, timely, quality services in light of population growth and legacy waitlists.
An urgent but realistic roadmap
The authors acknowledge that 29 recommendations are a lot. They propose a staged, multi-year implementation, aligned with work already underway in response to the coroner and the Auditor General. They deliberately do not call for a wholesale change of direction, but for a shift from “policy on paper” to resourced, rights-based practice: strong standards, visible oversight, real planning, and a properly supported provider network. Put simply, the review says this: Home Share can continue to be a cornerstone of community living in BC — but only if the province stops treating it as a low-cost default and starts treating it as a complex, relational system that demands serious, sustained investment.
Other analyses of the BC Home Share Review
– Link 1:
– Link 2:
The Independent Review: A Recycled Summary of What’s Been Known for More Than a Decade
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15iFFKfKAePeSYT3peokbyEAhaRHCA1oi/view?fbclid=IwY2xjawOVxhNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeLUfGdC5AICdbqpNCQp6S1DpgYPS5ECbYcXeO3SukzQXjlnakGScnVerfTOs_aem_dt4e2dCL9fplH1oVv92j6g
Source:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/british-columbians-our-governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/social-development-poverty-reduction/bc-home-share-review.pdf
In November 2025, the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction in British Columbia released an external review of the Community Living BC (CLBC) Home Share program. Conducted by Tamar Consultancy with Professor Tim Stainton and colleagues, the review was triggered by the coroner’s inquest into the death of Florence Girard and asked a blunt question: are current safeguards and standards enough to keep people safe and support a good life in Home Share?
A unique and overloaded model
Home Share in BC is unusual by international standards. Institutions have been closed for some time, and Home Share has become the province’s largest community living option — a situation the review notes “doesn’t exist in any other jurisdiction.” About 4,300 people are funded to live in Home Share, with hundreds more on waitlists and more than 19,000 adults outside any funded residential support, signalling deep, long-term pressure on the system. What was meant to be one option among many has effectively become the default, often chosen because alternatives are scarce, not because it is necessarily the best fit for the person. At the same time, key features that make family-based models safe — robust individual planning, careful matching, and strong informal networks — have been weakened over time. The review’s central warning is stark: “Even the best of monitoring and safeguards cannot protect against vulnerabilities created by an underfunded system.”
Method and scope
The team drew on briefings from CLBC, internal and external documents, a public email line, targeted interviews, and an Advisory Committee that included self-advocates, families, providers and sector organizations. They were asked to focus on safety, quality of life, and oversight mechanisms in Home Share — not to set specific pay rates, but to look at how funding decisions affect safety and quality.
Five Key Directions and 29 recommendations
Instead of offering a single “fix”, the review organizes its findings into five “Key Directions” – the pieces that must work together if Home Share is to be safe, sustainable and rights-respecting:
1. Standards, Safety and Quality of Life, Monitoring and Oversight 2. Individual Planning, Coordination and Review 3. Key Roles, Qualifications, Training and Supervision 4. Community Living Options 5. Broader Structural Issues
Underneath these sit 29 recommendations: 10 under standards and monitoring, 8 under planning, 5 under roles and training, 3 under living options, and 3 under broader structural issues. In short, the review argues that paperwork and policies are not the main gap; implementation, resources, and system design are. Policies are largely in place, but without regulation, transparency and consistent enforcement, safeguards remain uneven across regions.
The provider at the centre of the system
At the heart of the report is the recognition that Home Share is built on people opening their own homes and lives. A “well supported, reasonably compensated and appropriately skilled network of providers” is described as one of the most important elements of a safe and positive Home Share experience.
Yet multiple pressures converge on providers:
· People with more complex lives — including behavioural, health and mental-health needs — are increasingly being matched to Home Share. · Turnover of Home Share providers and key staff is a major concern, driven by rising costs, growing complexity, and erosion of allied and community supports. · The broader system of crisis, health and mental-health support is “less available”, shifting risk and workload into the home. Although the review did not set pay levels, it explicitly questions whether current compensation models truly support safe, sustainable arrangements in complex cases.
Planning, respite and training: invisible workload
In theory, Home Share providers offer daily support and a home, while CLBC facilitators and agency coordinators handle system navigation and planning. In practice, the review notes that expectations are often unclear, and providers may be responsible for coordinating community access without the time, skills or backing to do so.
Several “silent” workload issues emerge:
· Respite: small, fixed respite allocations come with significant administrative and payroll burdens, which many providers find impractical. Limited, hard-to-access respite contributes directly to fatigue and burnout.
· Training: training requirements are uneven, and there is little or no financial recognition for the time and effort providers spend developing skills — even though more complex profiles clearly demand better training.
· Planning: individual planning has weakened and is split between CLBC and coordinators. Planning is increasingly triggered by crisis rather than done proactively, leaving providers to manage escalating situations without a coherent, shared roadmap.
The recommendations respond by calling for stronger CLBC facilitator roles, clear division of responsibilities between CLBC and agencies, a standard planning template for every Home Share, and formal recognition of the training providers need for specific individuals.
Beyond BC: what other systems do
The review includes a substantial jurisdictional scan. While models differ, some patterns stand out: · United Kingdom – Shared Lives: A regulated adult social care model where people live as part of a carer’s family, supported by strong national inspection frameworks and an outcomes tool (“My Shared Life”). Carers are self-employed with a specific tax relief, and Shared Lives is consistently rated highly for safety and quality. · United States – HCBS waiver host-home and adult foster care: Federal rules (HCBS Settings Rule) set rights-based expectations, while some states (e.g. Pennsylvania, New York) combine intensive inspection, unannounced visits and clear incident-reporting timelines. · Other Canadian provinces: Provinces like Ontario and Quebec have more explicitly regulated frameworks or collective approaches for host-family care, with clearer inspection standards and, in some cases, more structured funding grids tied to assessed need. Across these examples, family-based models are generally seen as positive for autonomy, relationships and community inclusion — but only when backed by sustained investment in safeguards, data systems and workforce development, and when they sit within a genuine continuum of options rather than being the only practical choice.
Structural issues: health, housing and money
The last group of recommendations looks beyond CLBC’s internal policies. The review argues that Home Share cannot be made safe and sustainable if allied health, mental-health and crisis services are not reliably available, and if housing scarcity forces the program to stretch beyond what it was designed to do.
Key proposals include:
· Re-establishing health and nurse consultant roles for Community Living, strengthening HSCL and DDMHS, and potentially consolidating them under a provincial health authority with a dedicated budget. · Developing a housing and support strategy with the Ministry of Housing and BC Housing, to reduce over-reliance on Home Share and build a continuum of living options, including specialized Home Share with enhanced pay and support for complex cases. · Conducting a detailed review of CLBC’s budget needs and increasing funding to a level that can deliver safe, timely, quality services in light of population growth and legacy waitlists.
An urgent but realistic roadmap
The authors acknowledge that 29 recommendations are a lot. They propose a staged, multi-year implementation, aligned with work already underway in response to the coroner and the Auditor General. They deliberately do not call for a wholesale change of direction, but for a shift from “policy on paper” to resourced, rights-based practice: strong standards, visible oversight, real planning, and a properly supported provider network. Put simply, the review says this: Home Share can continue to be a cornerstone of community living in BC — but only if the province stops treating it as a low-cost default and starts treating it as a complex, relational system that demands serious, sustained investment.
Other analyses of the BC Home Share Review
– Link 1:
@selenamartin93 #caregiverlife #disability #communityliving #fyp ♬ original sound - Selena Martin🇨🇦
– Link 2:
The Independent Review: A Recycled Summary of What’s Been Known for More Than a Decade
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15iFFKfKAePeSYT3peokbyEAhaRHCA1oi/view?fbclid=IwY2xjawOVxhNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeLUfGdC5AICdbqpNCQp6S1DpgYPS5ECbYcXeO3SukzQXjlnakGScnVerfTOs_aem_dt4e2dCL9fplH1oVv92j6g
Source:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/british-columbians-our-governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/social-development-poverty-reduction/bc-home-share-review.pdf
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