New drunk tank no solution to inner city’s sober realities
Better to focus on more housing and mental-health services
Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht has come up with an interesting idea to address the growing number of people who are surviving on the street.
The individuals he refers to are often struggling with addictions, face mental illness and are often victims of crime. The most recent glaring example is a 50-year-old man stabbed to death in an early morning altercation on a downtown street two weeks ago.
Chief Knecht is suggesting we find a place to take people who are inebriated or otherwise distressed so they can connect with social workers and mental-health professionals. Presumably, the proposed drop-off point would be used especially overnight when most social agencies are closed.
But in many respects having an overnight drop-off point is not the main issue that needs attention. For the past year, Boyle Street Community Services has operated a street outreach program with the financial assistance of the City of Edmonton. Our workers get to know the people who are living on the street, address some immediate emergency needs and try to connect them to various services to help stabilize their lives.
There are, however, real obstacles to helping people leave the street. For example, during a 10-month period ending last month, we reached out to 943 individuals who needed help on the street. About 55 per cent of these folks have been homeless for less than one year.
Unfortunately, they are not eligible for the Housing First program, our premier program in this province that helps homeless people gain housing security. The program requires a person to be homeless for a longer period to gain access to program services.
Of this same 943 people we worked with, more than 500 required addiction services. We were only able to secure detox and treatment beds for 26 individuals or five per cent. Addressing addictions, let alone unaddressed mental-health issues, is central to helping people leave the street.
Some of the more shrill voices would like to see social service agencies leave the inner city. They argue that agencies such as Boyle Street Community Services are too large, serve as magnets for crime and make neighbourhoods unsafe and unattractive. And, without a doubt there are some who would say that having social service agencies in the downtown core is not good for the coming arena.
We get these messages all the time. We see it in the people we serve getting nuisance tickets for smoking outside our building. We see it when our clients are asked to produce identification without probable cause. We feel it too when we hear there is a push by some interest groups to move inner-city agencies to the city’s outskirts
Our clients want a safe city too. No one we know particularly wants to be beat up.
At Boyle Street, we have taken a number of steps, in conjunction with Edmonton Police Service, to ban known drug dealers from coming to our building and neighbourhood. We also reach out to neighbouring businesses to work together, and we continually look for ways to enhance our building as a welcoming community centre.
In our experience, however, the reason people use illicit drugs and then become victim to the attendant violence is to dull the pain they face as a result of untreated mental illness and trauma caused by childhood abuse. The reason people self-medicate in this way is because they don’t have access to mental-health and addiction treatment services.
This is the root cause of the problem Chief Knecht is trying to address. This is the central issue that frustrated community interests often forget. The solution isn’t another building to take people to; the solution isn’t another drunk tank or to just remove people from the street so they can meet another social worker.
If we want to address street violence and the root causes of homelessness, let’s focus on increasing access to housing programs for people who are homeless and let’s invest in mental-health and addiction services that will make a difference.
We see a great chance for all of us to work together, to make common cause by understanding what needs to be done. It’s a lot better than blaming each other or moving social agencies out of the inner city.