Whether a rest home for deserving pioneers or a poorhouse, the Provincial Home for Old Men was a startling innovation in social welfare.

Over 100 years ago, when the trappers and miners who built British Columbia could no longer work, they often ended up destitute and homeless in Victoria and Vancouver. Before pensions, assisted living and universal health care, there was the Provincial Home for the Aged and Infirm in Kamloops, BC. The “Home” would prove to be a safe place for elderly indigent men to live out their lives, but it was always susceptible to accusations of political favouritism, unsanitary conditions, and overcrowding.

Through extensive research and empathetic prose, Pioneers and Paupers brings to life the story of an institution, the men and women who worked there and the more than 2500 men who lived there over the course of eight decades. The “inmates,” as they were called, had to surrender any wealth they possessed and they lost the right to vote upon being admitted.

Ostensibly far removed from modern debates surrounding poverty and homelessness, there is much to learn from the difficulties and accomplishments of the Provincial Home that are relevant to discussions of contemporary social welfare policies.