‘Epidemic’ of homelessness, drugs
Drug addicts from Toronto, London and Chatham are relocating to Windsor, and that’s causing a problem for mental-health and addiction agencies whose resources are already stretched thin, a senior police officer said Tuesday.
“As a community, I think we’ve been in shock this last year because all of a sudden we’ve woken up and we have all these individuals here who are in crisis,” Windsor police Insp. Tammy Fryer said.
Crystal meth, fentanyl, opioids and even heroin are the drugs being used by addicts who are coming to Windsor from bigger cities because their money goes further here and the winters aren’t as harsh.
“It’s a crisis all the way around,” Fryer said.
Fryer was one of 55 local officials who met Tuesday for Round 2 of the Mental Health Round Table, a collaborative program aimed at improving local mental-health and addiction services. It’s a partnership between Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and the Canadian Mental Health Association Windsor-Essex.
Ron Dunn, executive director of the Downtown Mission, said the number of people with mentalhealth issues and drug addictions has become an “epidemic.” He said people talk about the opioid crisis like it’s something new, but it’s been around for a while and it’s getting worse. The mission is often “ground zero” for people who have nowhere left to go for help.
“I think we as a country probably should declare it a national emergency,” Dunn said. “Crystal meth is the drug of choice. For $5 you can be high all day, and if you have no other way to deal with whatever is causing you to be numb all day, then that’s a pretty cheap fix. We need to look at what caused them to get there.”
He said the mental-health crisis the region is now experiencing started years ago when government institutions were shut down and patients were released into the community without support systems in place.
“Too many times, we put BandAids on things, which is fine because sometimes you have to stop the bleeding first,” he said. “But that’s not the permanent solution going forward.”
Some of the ideas that came out of Tuesday’s meeting involve educating people about the services available to them. The group also discussed developing an app that would give police officers and paramedics real-time information on where to send people for help.
Right now people in crisis are brought to a hospital emergency room, where they take up beds and don’t get the help they need.
“An app along with some training might open that floodgate and let people know where they can send someone and what may be open at 1 a.m.,” Dunn said.
“We also talked about a travelling homeless group that would talk about homelessness at all levels — to our front-line staff, schools and anywhere we are welcome to spread the news about what the causes of homelessness are.”
Windsor police Const. Carol Bender said she’s “shocked” at the number of homeless people living on the streets compared to two or three years ago. She said they are everywhere in the city and the toughest thing can be getting them off the streets and into a safe place.
“Sometimes they just don’t want to go anywhere,” Bender said. “They are happy where they are. I can say, ‘Let’s go to the Welcome Centre or the mission’ and they’ll say, ‘No, I don’t want to go.’ ”
Fryer said one of the most basic issues facing homeless people is where to store their meagre belongings.
“It’s all they have,” Fryer said. “Whether it’s a shopping cart or a tent full of stuff, sometimes that’s all they have. We want to put them in homes and get them the supports they need, but where are we going to put their stuff in the meantime while we are getting them into the home?”
Janice Forsyth, a consultant for the roundtable, expects all the ideas and action steps to be put into a report by January.
“We are very pragmatic when it comes to our action plans so we do have very detailed steps, dates and timelines,” Forsyth said. “Going forward, we are looking for accountability and monitoring. We are just ensuring that we don’t have some great conversations and then nothing happens.”