Richmond Friendship Home Society

The Richmond Friendship Home Society has existed in name since 1968 and was officially incorporated as a non-profit society in 1977. The society arose from the activities of a sub-committee of the Richmond Family Court Committee which was struck in 1964 to investigate the feasibility of creating a short-term placement home for adolescents who, for legal or personal reasons, could not live with their families. The principal activity of the society was the operation and administration of a Receiving Home for troubled adolescents at 7980 Moffat Road in Richmond. The home operated between 1967 and 1984 and provided short-term care for children and adolescents awaiting trial, psychiatric assessment, or placement in foster homes and for transient runaways apprehended by the police. For a short period in the 1970s, the society also administered a number of outreach programs funded by the Ministry of Human Resources. These included Station Stretch and Cook Street alternative education programs and Lindsay Gardens. Lindsay Gardens provided activities for residents of a low income housing project. The society also acted as a contract agency for the Special Services to Children program which provided one-to-one counselling and skills development to children and adolescents. These programs were discontinued in 1978 following criminal investigations of society activities, but the Receiving Home operated until 1984. The society continued to hold regular members meetings into the 1990s.