ARCHES gets additional funding
COUNCIL SUPPORT WILL HELP EXPAND NEEDLE COLLECTION PROGRAM
City councillors voted 7-2 in favour Tuesday of providing ARCHES with an additional $54,000 to help fund its Needle Collection Program for April through the end of December, an increase of over $20,000 from the previous service contract ending March 31.
Most of the money ($31,425) came from council’s own contingency fund with the additional amount coming from city’s FCSS discretionary fund. The money will be spent by ARCHES on additional staffing to enhance the hours of service offered for its needle collection service, (prior to the vote ARCHES only had enough funding to pay for nine hours of on-call collection each week).
However, not all on council were happy to pay for the program out of the city’s coffers. Deputy Mayor Joe Mauro did not question the value of the program, but he did question why it was the city was paying for an ARCHES employee to do the cleanup work; an area he felt should be a provincial or federal responsibility.
“I find it really interesting we have a federal government and a provincial government that tells us one dollar invested in harmreduction strategies saves five dollars in traditional health-care costs,” he said. “They spend millions of dollars in creating a safe injection site. They staff it. Everything is fine, but they leave the problems that come to the municipality to fund. I kind of struggle with that.”
Coun. Blaine Hyggen was more blunt in his criticism. Citing an example of a business owner downtown who had unsuccessfully been trying to have a discarded needle picked up by ARCHES for over a month, and other similar criticisms he has heard, Hyggen felt ARCHES just wasn’t up to the task asked of them, and didn’t feel more council money was the answer.
“Other communities don’t have this program,” he stated. “They have similar needle debris, I am sure. I don’t think the money we have spent to date was spent effectively. (ARCHES) response time is supposed to be one hour, but I know of instances where it has been much greater than that.”
Mauro was rebutted by Coun. Rob Miyashiro, who was decidedly in favour of the program having advanced the original motion to support ARCHES.
“We need to understand the federal government did give approval for the Safe Consumption Site,” he stated. “The province has given approval for the staffing of the Safe Consumption Site. The province spent millions of dollars on a detox centre at the hospital, and they are staffing that ... I think it is a bit misleading to state the province and the feds have not paid for their share.”
Rebutting Hyggen, Mayor Chris Spearman expressed his strong confidence in ARCHES to manage the Needle Collection Program effectively going forward.
“Lethbridge has had one of the highest per capita rates of drug use in the province,” said Spearman. “If we chose not to clean up the needle debris, our city would be poorer for it. It would be a less safe city. It would not be a familyfriendly city.
“I think it is important we allocate dollars where we have problems. The drug issue and the needle debris have been one of the highest profile issues in this city the past couple of years. For us not to direct $50,000 toward a clean-up program, I think would be an abdication of our responsibilities.”
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