New addictions recovery centre for women will channel Anne Oake's legacy of caring for others, says Scott Oake
Anne died in 2021 shortly after opening of Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, which she co-founded in memory of son
She may be gone, but Anne Oake's passion for helping those struggling with addictions will live on in a planned recovery centre for women and families.
Two years after her death, her husband, Scott Oake, and staff at the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre announced plans this week for the Anne Oake Recovery Centre.
"The Oakes have done so much for the community," said Greg Kyllo, executive director of the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, which opened in Winnipeg's Crestview neighbourhood in 2021, just weeks before Anne died.
The new centre will take that work to "the next level, and being able to really support families and women is incredibly meaningful for all of us here and it will be a dream come true," Kyllo said.
The location and opening date for the new treatment centre haven't been determined, nor has how much it will cost.
Scott Oake is nonetheless confident it will help many families, based on the success stories from those who have gone through the men-only Bruce Oake Recovery Centre — named after his and Anne's son, who died of a drug overdose in 2011.
"Our dream was always to get the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre built … so that what happened to Bruce didn't have to happen to somebody else," said Scott.
"We never did, though, lose sight of a women's centre."
The Bruce Oake centre's opening came after years of fundraising, zoning hurdles and community pushback over the location, once home to Vimy Arena.
Despite criticism by some councillors, Winnipeg's city council voted in favour of selling the property — valued at $1.43 million as of 2018 — to the Manitoba government for $1.
The province in turn leased the land to the Bruce Oake Foundation for $1 a year for 99 years. The province put another $3.5 million toward the build.
Scott said the Anne Oake Recovery Centre will similarly need "significant government support" to get off the ground.
Supporters of the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre applauded the idea of situating it in a residential area, arguing facilities in such neighbourhoods tend to provide better access and improved outcomes.
There were also some detractors in Crestview who didn't like the idea of an addictions centre in their backyard.
Scott said he is "ready for any kind of pushback like that" again.
"We had to be respectful of that and we were proud to have run a dignified educational campaign, in which I think we were successfully able to explain the difference between active addiction and recovery," said the veteran CBC sportscaster.
"Anybody trying to recover is focused on one thing, and that's their sobriety. The men at the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre, we always said, would be good neighbours, and that's exactly how its turned out."
In two years since then, Kyllo said the results have exceeded expectations.
"We are seeing the best results that we would've anticipated after 10 years in just two years, and it's really due to the support from the community," he said.
That's led to the sense that "we need to move forward on the dream and the vision that we've always had of building a women's centre as well," he said.
The new centre will include a range of long-term recovery supports in a residential setting, including onsite child care spaces for mothers — the absence of which has been a barrier at other centres for women, according to Kyllo.
Women who go through the program will also have access to a counsellor for life.
The care will be offered on a sliding price scale, and no one will be turned away because they can't pay, said Scott Oake.
"Money is often the single greatest barrier to recovery," he said.
That was a barrier River Johnson said he faced when he needed treatment. Anne and Scott covered the bill.
"I very likely ... would have died from overdose," he said. "If not overdose, probably died by suicide."
The supports he received at another facility — prior to the opening of the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre — changed his life, he said, and Anne played no small part in that.
"Everything that she was was about making the world better," Johnson said. "She wanted the world to be better and she believed the best in people."
A plaque in Scott and Anne's home says her life was about "caring for others as a wife, mother, palliative care nurse and founder of the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre."
It also reads "she lived her life by her favourite expression, 'it costs nothing to be kind to someone.'"
Scott hopes to channel Anne's kindness and caring into the new centre named after her.
"We can help get people back to their families, their loved ones, their jobs, society," he said.
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With files from Brittany Greenslade and Meaghan Ketcheson