Interior Health and the provincial government announced funding Monday to link more than one-third of Interior Health’s residents with crisis line service.

Asha Croggon, provincial programs manager for the Crisis Line Association of B.C., said 37 per cent of IHA residents have been without a crisis line for years.

Kelowna, Vernon, East Kootenay, Kootenay Boundary and the Cariboo-Chilcotin all have community-based, volunteer crisis lines.

Now their network will be linked throughout Interior Health. The crisis line number is 1-888-353-CARE (2273).

Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake made the news official Monday morning.

Interior Health is providing $74,200 in one-time funding for the service’s start up, while the province is contributing $437,000 a year for operating and maintenance costs.

Lake said the volunteers answering crisis line calls will have a database of resources available in all of the communities within IHA.

So even though Kamloops calls will be routed to Vernon or Kelowna first, and then to other centres if those lines are busy, whoever answers will have information about help in the caller’s community.

“They offer people hope,” Lake said of the crisis line volunteers.

Sharon Durant, program support manager for the North Okanagan crisis line, said the trained volunteers who answer the calls can take the time to hear how callers are feeling.

About five per cent of calls are suicide related. The rest are broad in nature, from someone concerned about a family member with an addiction to people in abusive relationships.

Croggon said Kamloops hasn’t had a crisis line in at least 12 years. While people who are despondent might use the provincial suicide hotline, it doesn’t serve everyone’s needs.

The five crisis lines already serving the IHA region deal with 35,000 calls a year, with an average length of 21 minutes.

“Some people use the crisis line to manage their mental health or addiction (issues),” she said.

“We regard ourselves as that invisible community safety net.”

All five of the offices will have a database of the services available for people in crisis in Kamloops, she said.

But the executive director of the Kamloops Sexual Assault Counselling Centre said local volunteers at a local office would be better.

“There has been no crisis line in Kamloops for the last seven years. I think it’s probably the only city this size in Canada that has no crisis line, no suicide line,” said Cynthia Davis.

She gave an example of a 15-year-old girl who, several years ago, called her centre’s crisis line before it was shut down.

The girl was from an outlying community but was in Kamloops on a day in February. She was raped at midnight on the street. Police took her to the hospital, got some tests for a rape kit, and left her in the parking lot without a coat at 3 a.m.

She called the crisis line and a volunteer picked her up, took care of her for three hours and then took her to the bus depot so she could get home.

That’s what an out-of-town crisis line can’t do, Davis said.

Crisis lines are good for helping people who need to talk, who are depressed or suicidal, she added.

And there’s a definite need in Kamloops.

Doug Sage, executive director of the Kamloops Canadian Mental Health Association, said the crisis line will benefit those who need it.

“I used to work on crisis lines as a volunteer. The kind of calls you get are not always crises, they’re people who are struggling. The fact there’s a caring, concerned interested individual on the other end of the line gives people hope,” he said.

“Instilling the hope is important.”

Local knowledge is helpful, such as giving bus routes to get to a certain agency, and that might not be available on the crisis line, he said.

But it is a support.

“It’s nice that we can all tell people if they’re struggling, call this number.”