More cash for drug debris

CITY TO DIRECT $150K IN FUNDS TO DOWNTOWN BRZ CLEAN SWEEP PROGRAM

More money is going to help deal with drug debris in Lethbridge.

On Monday, during their regular meeting, city council passed a resolution to direct up to $150,000 in unallocated Outreach Support Services Initiative funds to expand the Downtown BRZ Clean Sweep program and enhance current mobile outreach services to help deal with needle debris.

The use has been approved by Alberta Community and Social Services through 20182019 OSSI unallocated funds, and is provincial, not municipal, in nature.

Nearly $250,000 has been directed toward needle debris cleanup in the past year.

“This has nothing to do with consumption,” said Coun. Rob Miyashiro. “This is about picking up needle debris and cleaning up our streets and parks and laneways, and making them safer for the community.”

Miyashiro said the problem has exploded in recent years and the money will enhance programming already in place.

The resolution was not completely supported by council, as Coun. Blaine Hyggen and Coun. Joe Mauro both voted against it.

Hyggen said he supports the efforts of city groups to keep needle debris off the streets but was concerned about the amount of money being spent.

“It’s an issue we have to deal with,” he said. “I’m not saying we leave the needles out there, but how many different organizations do we have to do this? How much more money are we giving out?

“I believe in the Clean Sweep program, I think it’s wonderful, but I think that how we’re going about this is not the right way. We’re not being up front and transparent with how we are spending our money.”

Mayor Chris Spearman spoke in favour of the resolution, saying there are some misconceptions in the community about ARCHES promoting drug use through its clean needle program, and noted drug use was an issue before ARCHES became involved with dispensing needles.

“We’re fortunate to have ARCHES finding ways to reduce harm in the community,” he said.

He added the recovery rate of ARCHES for needles is as high as 97 per cent in some months.

Additionally, ARCHES has stated it has reduced the number of needles being handed out by more than 20,000 per month to between 13,000 and 15,000 per month since the opening of the supervised consumption site.

“That said, it’s almost impossible to control drug debris and use in the community,” said Spearman.

“We’ve heard the users are people who frequently suffer from FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) and have a mental capacity between five and eight years old. It’s very hard to reason with them for getting to pick up their needle debris.

“The challenge we have is people who are using drugs up to 10 times a day in any one location are likely to keep coming back, keep leaving debris, and we have to make sure we have programs in place to keep the community safe for other people to use.”

“Epidemics are not easy to deal with,” said Coun. Belinda Crowson. “If it was easy, we would have dealt with it a long time ago. So we need to have a wide range of ways to deal with it.

Miyashiro said the goal is to make parks and walkways more accessible for everyone.

“Last thing we want to see is some kids playing with needles,” he said. “This money will hopefully going to see a great result of more needle pickups, less people in the general public encountering needles.”

“It is a lot of money. But this is a huge problem, I don’t know any simpler way to say it.

“It’s either we spend the money now, or something tragic is going to happen. There is already an uproar in the city because people don’t know what we’re doing.”