People First Radio

After years of construction work, new shelter space is expected to open this month in downtown Nanaimo. The Salvation Army Centre of Hope is located at 19 Nicol St. Formerly known as the New Hope Centre, it houses a shelter and other support programming. Construction has been ongoing since 2023 for a new four story […]

Yo Bro Yo Girl co-founder Joe Calendino is working to prevent young people from leading the life he used to live. A few decades back, Calendino was a full patch member of the Hell's Angels. Dealing with drug addiction, and involved in a high profile fight in a Kelowna casino in 2005, he was kicked […]

A new audio drama airing on Radio Sidney tells a story of elder financial abuse. Beware Mysterious Mark is a 10 part series airing Thursdays through July. Producer Bill Collins spoke with People First Radio about the play, and the issue it seeks to bring awareness to. “It is a traditional kind of radio play. […]

When it opened in 1921, the Weyburn Mental Hospital was hailed as the last and largest asylum in the British Commonwealth. Managing Madness co-author Erika Dyck writes that in the beginning, it was a symbol of both progress and a bygone era, embodying a set of contradictions from the outset. Dyck is a Canada Research […]

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Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk has been practicing medicine for 15 years, largely working with people living on the streets. Since December, she’s added a new dimension to her work, social media influencer. Wiwcharuk posts under the handle streetdrjill. On Instagram, she has more than 75,000 followers at the time of writing. Her videos cover topics related […]

A Nanaimo supportive housing site celebrated a decade of giving people a home in the community. On a sunny April day, staff and residents at Boundary came together for a 10th anniversary BBQ. Boundary is in central Nanaimo near the hospital, it's run by Vancouver Island Mental Health Society(VIMHS), the organization behind People First Radio. […]

Erin Dej, associate professor in the department of criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University, has been helping craft a curriculum to teach high school students about homelessness. “We recognize that young people are seeing homelessness, that they are aware of it, and they have questions,” Dej said. “We wanted to create curriculum to help them work […]

Bernie Pauly of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the University of Victoria speaks about how the toxic drug crisis has unfolded over 10 years as a declared public health emergency. Also featuring the voices of Amanda Farrell-Low, Stephanie Harrington, and Sarah Lee.

Trevor Wideman, a postdoctoral researcher at Vancouver Island University, is looking at municipal governance and health policy, and how it interacts with the toxic drug and housing crises. Christopher Hauchildt is operations coordinator for a community engaged research project called Walk With Me. The two of them spoke with People First Radio about Walk With […]

Gabriola Island playwright Frank Moher is putting his own story on this stage. Boy Player chronicles the author’s experience of being orphaned and moving across a continent in his youth. It’s the third in a series of shows from Western Edge Theatre exploring themes of men’s mental health. Moher visited CHLY to speak about the […]

A University of Victoria PhD student is looking at the intersection between chronic pain and sexuality. “ I’m really looking at understanding people’s stories and experiences. And what I want to understand is how chronic pain affects sexuality and identity in people that live with chronic pain,” said Jenise Finlay, speaking to People First Radio from […]

Ann Livingston has spent decades helping drug user groups organize. In the 1990s, she helped co-found the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and is currently working with the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU). “ A drug user group in the simplest mission statement is to improve the lives of people who have not […]

Lexie Morgan is a registered clinical counsellor. She does work with the Sea to Sky chapter of a group called Mountain Muscox, which offers support to people who have experienced trauma or loss in the mountains. She spoke with People First Radio about the group and her work.  When someone had experienced a traumatic event, […]

Writer Jordan Kawchuk is preparing to speak as a lived experience speaker at a Nanaimo Foundation event called Rethinking Drinking. “My lived experience is that I’ve been to treatment many times and I wrestle with alcohol use disorder,” he said. “I hope to that the community can see that alcohol use disorder is a disease. […]

Independent musicians from around coastal B.C. speak about mental health in the industry, following on the heels of a report from music industry leadership consultancy Revelios that identified significant challenges faced by Canadians working in music. The episode features Revelios president and founder Catherine Harrison, as well as musicians Jeff Cancade AKA Devours, NEAVV, and […]

Home Based Recovery Executive Director Rob DeClark says he’s spent the last few decades working in the in patient treatment industry. “ The landscape changed considerably in terms of the amount of options and also in terms of the cost of treatment,” he says. DeClark says that when he entered the field, a six week in […]

Elaine Power says a few decades back, close to the start of her career, Canada started viewing food as the solution to food insecurity. Power is now approaching retirement from her work as a professor at Queen's University focused on food insecurity, while the number of Canadians who are food insecure is on the rise. […]

The Ethics Bowl is billed as “a space where discussion is used to untangle the nuanced topics.” Ethics Bowl events see teams present positions on complex topics like  and face questions from judges and fellow competitors. Example subjects covered include the moral implications of life sentences without the opportunity for parole, or the ethics of […]

Victoria filmmaker Cory Thibert says he never saw a family like his depicted on screen, which was the starting point for his debut narrative feature film, Mildlife. “ Both of my parents live with cerebral palsy,” he said, “I’ve never seen that represented.” Thibert spoke with People First Radio about the film, which had its Canadian […]

Clown Fish tells the story of Paul Tedeschini’s journey through life as an actor moving across Canada and navigating various emotional challenges. The show is being performed by Tedeschini at Nanaimo’s OV Arts Centre through March 1st. He visited the CHLY studio, along with the show’s director Nicolle Nattrass, to speak about it. Clown Fish […]

North Cowichan resident Royce Warren has spent much of his life working in resource industries. “I’ve been a forester, I’ve been a miner, I’ve been a commercial fisherman. I’ve farmed for a number of years,” he said. “A lot of that was earlier on in my life and I decided to go to university and […]

Priya Sharma and Kayleigh Busch met working in the field of mental health and substance use support in Victoria. The pair say they consistently noticed a need among the population they serve. “Time and time again, we work with individuals who show that they’re motivated and they’re putting in all of this work to wanna […]

The manager of a Nanaimo supportive housing site says that almost one year on from breaking ground, the community is coming together around 1030 Old Victoria Road. “Even those folks that were coming in with those tricky questions in the early days are wanting to be a part of what we’re doing here,” said Dolly […]

Dr. Alexandre Hudon, a Medical psychiatrist, clinician-researcher and clinical assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and addictology at the Université de Montréal spoke with the program about the potential interplay between psychosis and generative AI, a topic he also explored in an article in The Conversation. “ Psychosis is a state where a person will […]

Toronto based freelance journalist Zahra Khozema spoke with the program about her evolving relationship with the gym, and her decision to give up her membership, via what she called one of the most difficult emails she sent in 2025. “ What made me send that email was I think a mix of burnout and guilt and […]

Nanaimo playwright Joëlle Rabu is bringing dementia to the spotlight with a show that hits the stage at the Malaspina theater later this month. Set in a dementia care facility, I Don’t Belong Here: Stories and Songs at the Edge of Forgetting is portrayed through the eyes of 22 different characters. “We offer the stories […]

Vancouver Island artist Philip Mix says that as a kid, all he wanted to do was drawn. Now 70 years old, Mix says at some point along the way, he figured it was more than likely a coping mechanism for him. Mix is one of numerous artists who contributed work to Recognition and Recollection, an […]

To mark Alzheimer’s awareness month, Heather Cooke, Manager of Research and Knowledge Mobilization at the Alzheimer’s Soceity of B.C. spoke with the program about recent developments in Alzheimer’s treatment. “We still see this prevalence of stigma, and that can be stigma from others, but it can also be self-stigma,” she said. “We know that silence […]

Melanie Doucet, Executive Director of the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates, says there can be a hard cut off for people raised in the foster system when they reach adulthood. “ Parents don’t just go, ‘hey, you’re 18 or 19 now, so I’ve done my job and here’s a garbage bag of your belongings […]

Treena Orchard says an approach to intimacy and human connection called relationship anarchy is becoming especially popular among millennials and Generation Z. The associate professor at Western University’s school of health studies spoke with People First Radio about the subject, which she had previously covered in The Conversation. “Relationship anarchy is an approach to relating […]

A planned supportive housing site in Victoria will offer 20 spaces to men in recovery. Located at 1153 Johnson St. It’s the result of a partnership between BC Housing, the City of Victoria, and The Victoria Cool Aid Society. Angela Moran, Director of Housing and Shelters with the Victoria Cool Aid Society, spoke with People […]

A planned supportive housing development in Nanaimo aims to offer spaces for people looking to minimize exposure to substance use. Called Sparrow, it is set to go in the former Travellers Lodge on Nelson Street. Funded by the provincial HEARTH program, the building is being leased by BC Housing, and will operated by Pacifica Housing. […]

A family story of Finding Home in Nanaimo has inspired a new children’s book. Liubov Nazarenko says she and her family moved to Nanaimo from Ukraine three years ago because of the war. According to Nazarenko, one day, her daughter was missing home, and a story Nazarenko’s mom Valentyna Miliohlova told her granddaughter to help […]

On the second Saturday of every month, a group of volunteers in Victoria head out in public to offer what co-founder Bernice Rahm calls “gimmick free listening.” Rahm spoke with People First Radio about the project, called Sidewalk Talk. “We’ve had people tell us about how their partner is in the hospital and they’re not […]

The Mayor of Calwood calls a model used to bring family doctors to the community a “no-brainer”. Doug Kobayashi says that a few years ago, the small city near Victoria had zero family doctors.To try and address the problem, they looked at a model where Colwood would run its own clinic. Doctors would work as […]

Ottawa Pediatrician Dr. Shawn Kelly is calling for more focus on addressing youth opioid use. Kelly spoke with People First Radio to expand on the issues he raised in a recent editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, co-authored by Shannon Charlebois. “ I belong to a loose network of other people who do similar work. […]

Adam McInnis is a nurse practitioner who lives in London, Ont., and specializes in addictions medicine. He also has first hand experience of addiction, and is eight years sober. In addition to his own clinical work, Mcinnis works as a nurse adviser with a provincial initiative in Ontario designed to improve care for people experiencing […]

Charlotte Lee, a research fellow and chartered psychologist at The University of Bristol, says that weight gain following diagnosis of certain mental illnesses is predictable, but healthcare systems aren’t doing enough to support people through the experience. Lee was the lead author on a study that looked at the health records of over 100,000 people […]

Patty Douglas is an associate professor of disability studies at Queen’s University and author of Unmothering Autism. She also describes herself as “a mom of two neurodivergent sons, one of whom attracted the label of autism.” “Autism is a made up category just as much as it is a very real lived experience,” she said. […]

Around ten years ago, Julia Gruson-Wood put out a research call and spoke with a number of people about applied behavior analysis (ABA), which is the basis of a common intervention used with autistic children, despite drawing criticism from autistic self advocates. Gruson-Wood says many of the conversations were cagey at first, with people trying […]

A new documentary is sharing people’s experiences of self injury, as well as the stories of their recovery. Self Injury: Stories of Recovery and Hope emerged as part of a research project of Stephen Lewis, a professor in the psychology department at the University of Guelph. “We used a research approach called participatory video. And […]

Opioid agonist treatment (OAT) is a treatment for opioid use disorder. It involves the use of medications such as methadone, buprenorphine, and slow release oral morphine. People First Radio spoke with Nanaimo addictions medicine specialist Dr. Jess Wilder, and BC Centre for Substance Use Co-Medical Director Dr. Paxton Bach about the treatment, which Bach called […]

Stephen Monteiro, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University, says that conversations around smartphone use tend to focus on content, rather than on the place the devices themselves have come to hold in our lives. “Social media is a big one. Gaming is another big one. More and more the use of AI is […]

 No Fixed Address: The White Cart Memorial is a documentary filmed in Kelowna exploring grief and homelessness. Co-producers and directors Joshua Black and Stephanie Laing spoke with People First Radio. Its title refers to a memorial designed by unhoused community members in Kelowna. A shopping cart was painted white and people added tags and other […]

Renata Roma says people are becoming increasingly aware of the mental health of their pets. “ The emotional place of animals in people’s lives is very different to if we compare to how animals were perceived years ago,” she said. The researcher at the PAWsitive Connections lab with the University of Saskatchewan pointed to recent survey […]

From the works of deaf architect Adolf Loos to the psychiatric record of U.S. civil war veteran, Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy and Jenifer Barclay have been coordinating a team of authors exploring a wide range of topics in disability history. The pair are editors of Cripping The Archive, Disability, History, and Power. The spoke with People First […]

Downtown Eastside service provider First United released a law reform platform earlier this fall, calling for changes to the Residential Tenancy Act in B.C. Staff lawyer Vinson Shih spoke with People First Radio about the platform, which called for an end to pet bans in rentals, and the right for tenants to install cooling devices […]

When Shannon Donohoe-Simpson was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer in her thirties, she says it was a surprise. “ I was that person that was very healthy,” she said. “I was really into personal training and I thought I ate really healthy. So when I was diagnosed with cancer, I know not just […]

In her debut novel, Meg Todd explores difficult subject matter, covering themes like fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, inter-generational abuse, and sexual assault. Most Grievous Fault explores the story of Crystal, who is in her late 20s and mother of Becky, 14. The two live together in a small apartment in the city. Todd says she’s […]

Dr Shannon Charlebois is fed up with the prevalence of gambling advertising in professional sports broadcasts. “The situation is ticking me off. It’s ticking off lots of Canadians,” she said. Charlebois is medical editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. She co-authored an editorial about gambling advertising and risks to youth. She referred to a […]