Location matters for facility to help addicts and homeless
By Letter to the Editor on April 10, 2021.
Editor: The Mustard Seed (MS) has twice tried to set up services in Lethbridge and twice has been defeated. For many, this was welcome news. While we recognize the importance of helping the homeless, drug addicts and alcoholics it’s important to ensure that whatever organization comes in, that we don’t end up with variations of ARCHES on our hands or that problems are spread to other parts of the city. Location matters and that was a big factor in why so many objected to MS’s application.
Currently problems are localized in the downtown area with many agencies providing help to the approx. 150 homeless. Had MS considered this and found a building close to downtown (soup kitchen/shelter area) the outcome might have been different. Rather; MS seemed to believe location didn’t matter to us, nor; how under direct control they would operate because, after all, they are in the ‘helping’ business. This attitude was confirmed several months ago when they announced plans to purchase and rezone Ramada Inn on Mayor Magrath Dr. and 13 Ave. S (Lakeview/Henderson Lake area) for a supportive housing complex/sober shelter. When federal tax dollars didn’t come through, they found a new location: 13 St. S. and 2nd Ave. S. close to Earl’s Restaurant (Westminster neighborhood). Either location would have spread the problem but it didn’t faze MS in the least in spite of huge public outcry.
Nor did MS seem to care that the areas they were hoping to occupy would need patrolling similar to downtown that The Watch provides which costs taxpayers over $600,000 per year.
This attitude is problematic and needs to be reigned in. Acknowledging that MS caters to a clientele known to bring problems to an entire area is a starting point. Their type of business is NOT a ‘normal’ business like a coffee shop or clothing store and therefore should not be processed as such. I hope the City will consider amending the application process to reflect this and heed the call for a community based Master Plan. IF developed it could serve as a framework for MS and other agencies guidelines to keep our community safe while at the same time ideas for integrated services that would be of real benefit to the homeless.
Rena Woss
Lethbridge
-1
Great letter! We absolutely need a ‘master plan’. Providing food and shelter and then kicking people out onto the street right after they wake up and eat has never worked. We’d be better off to build a facility close to the soup kitchen and expand services to include addictions counselling, skills training etc. City owns property close to soup kitchen. Eldorado RV is across the street (maybe they would be willing to sell). A proper facility would give the homeless reason to stay rather than aimlessly wander our streets. Blood Reserve needs to provide funds as well as set up a facility on the reserve as the majority of the homeless come from there.
A lot of the Indigenous people on the streets here were born and raised in Lethbridge. They are citizens of Lethbridge.
The funding that Blood Tribe gets is directly from the federal government (from their own resource revenues that they have no control over, which has to go to the feds first to take out royalties and fund crown corporations, then Blood Tribe has to beg back for funding from the feds, none of it is tax payer money) which already adds over $39,000,000.00 annually to the economy of Lethbridge. The funding doesnt stay on the reserve whatsoever.
White men disproportionately make up a majority of pedophiles and serial killers. Should we make britain, france, germany, and italy pay for their court costs and incarceration?
That is not true. In the 50’s ‘Indigenous’ had to be out of the city and back to the reservation by 6 pm.
And funding? That is the money that we tax payers give the government that ends up in the pockets of the indigenous too much of which is squandered but that’s another issue.
Read The Indian Act dude. It’s all in there. None of the funding for the reserve system or to Indigenous communites comes out of tax payer dollars. It comes from resource revenues pulled from the Tribes themselves, pooled in Ottawa, then the Tribes have to beg for it back, while those same monies are used to invest in crown corporations and wherever the feds see fit.
Taxpayer money does not go to Indigenous communities, it’s their own money. Meanwhile, that money is also used to subsidize canada.
It’s all there in the Indian Act. Read it and understand how canada’s system works.
good luck getting through – we are a nation of great ignorance, made worse because we think we are enlightened.
Prime Minister Trudeau tried to do away with the Indian Act and dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs in 1969. Indians would essentially become like other Canadian citizens. The Indians refused. It would mean that they would have to get by on their own steam. Heaven forbid.
We are on the fourth generation of street people who were born and raised in Lethbridge man. Almost all of the people out there now who are Indigenous were born and raised here. You ever go talk to them? Ever find out about their lives?
I have. I’d recommend you do as well, but I fear that may be putting them in danger.
4th generation of ‘street’ people? Sad statement for them and a burden for us because of the problems they bring and the huge economic and social costs involved. Where are the success stories? Where are the entrepreneurs? I’ve never been to one business owned and run by ‘indigenous. Other cultures come here and the story is 180 different.
Ever wonder why the Indigenous people from the blood reserve have extraordinarily high addiction rates?
Ask anyone like myself who has worked on the blood reserve and they will tell you that the racism there is rampant. It’s not just from the adults either. It includes kids throwing rocks at us and yelling out profanities and racial slurs. The adults either advertently or inadvertently teach their kids to be racist, hateful, and shameful. Such severe negative thoughts are a main catalyst to escapism via addiction.
“Parenting skills 101” is in need.
Not sure where you are getting your data from but its inaccurate. We had 300 street people/addicts in Lethbridge in 2017. When the SCS opened we catapulted to in excess of 1900. Of those 1900, 95% were indigenous.
I did talk to the addicts that hung out around the SCS. They themselves stated that “most” were from the Blood. The rest were from Taber and Medicine Hat, Fort Macleod Areas.
Here is how all of this will work just as it has in most reserves in Canada. During the summer, the addicts/alcoholics clear out to the closest city and become what you suggest are residents. When winter hits about 50% go back to the reserve or their previous residence.
This cycle is seen every every year. That is why if there are no services in a city the number of vagrants drops significantly in the winter.
Now add to this mix, more assistance, more services, more places to stay and what you do is not stop the cycle. You create more vagrants in waiting, because there is no need to “go back” in the winter. This creates another cycle of people that would not normally leave their primary residents, and see the services as being much better in the “target city” then on the Reserves. That makes the city a target for more vagrants wanting to get in on the “better services”.
So if anyone thinks that there is not an never ending supply of wannabe vagrants in our area they have not looked around very well
There is a never ending supply of people who don’t want to work, that would take free food, free lodgings, free clothes and use their social assistance and any other monies they make on the side to support their habit?
You can call this “”saving a person” all you wish but you are creating a person who is dedicated to their habit and if you save 5%, you will find another 5% more than willing to live off society who have no intention of ever going through recovery.
So in the end you have a Downtown East Side Vancouver and if that is what you want, you should move to Vancouver! People that propose what appears to be solutions are issuing platitudes and feel good statements to get elected or they really do not understand the depth of the problem Lethbridge has. A prime example of that was the Previous Police Chief when he uttered his now famous phrase. Well, you can’t put 300 people in Jail! Well, how about 1900 Ex Police Chief are those numbers any better!
We have 3500 addicts in Lethbridge, do you want 5000? No problem, build a multi-story living complex, increase the size of the food kitchen, and clear out our parks, Then wait for the next load of vagrants to be attracted to the city, then increase lodgings, increase services, increase food facilities and clean up our parks. Then wait for the next load of vagrants………………
Dennis, the majority of these folks are not homeless, they are just “away from home”, as they do have a place to live on the reserve. But there’s easier access to free stuff in Lethbridge, Which is why we have so much crime here.
And Dennis, I really hope you will run for Mayor/Council.
Exactly.
It’s also precisely why you see countless posts on various internet forums in which Indigenous family members come to Lethbridge from the Blood reserve to try and get their kids / grandkids to come back home.
Furthermore, people say “homeless” as if the homeless are in danger of starving or freezing to death. Yet, not only do many have a home to go to, but in Lethbridge, they get free shelter, free food, and free clothing. So ya, to those people crying “we need to help the homeless!!”? Please shut the h–l up.
UncleBuck,
The vast majority of street addicts and crime are young Indigenous people from the Blood reserve. Heck, even the Kainai nation admits that. This isn’t a racist to thing to admit. In fact, it’s the most important thing to recognize in order to come up with a solution.
Yes Dennis ,if some on council don’t run again,it will free up more wasted space for the totally clueless. Those who have come forward or most ,so far , will take Lethbridge in a really scary direction.
Indeed they will Montreal. They don’t understand the issue and therefore propose non-solutions. What they propose will actually do nothing to help addicts. It will just make things worse for everyone.
WATCH service stops at 6th Ave. yet problems expand all the way to 9th Ave. which means every park in the area is now occupied by drug addicts and homeless staggering around and shooting up. We want our parks back! Let’s give the homeless a facility that includes what you mention plus a park and coffee shop so they stay in one place. Mustard Seed has never provided stats on their success rate nor do we know how long most people are able to stay at their facility; word is 2 weeks tops and you sure can’t turn your life around in 2 weeks. Seems to me Mustard Seed would be yet another hangout pandering to drug addicts providing them with fragmented services and of course goody bags. A master plan makes sense!
In watching the public hearing what became clear is how businesses like Mustard Seed care more for their business than they do about the surrounding businesses. As is pointed out, Mustard Seed is not a regular business and should not be processed as such. It’s a lightning rod attracting an undesirable clientele. Imagine if they set up on 13th St. S. Overnight the area vibe would plummet and crime escalate. Westminster neighborhood, school and park would be taken over by the homeless and druggies. Westminster park is vitally important to the area because it provides a much needed beautiful place for kids and families who for the most part live in one of the poorest areas of Lethbridge. Who would protect the park from the druggies staggering around and strewing needles about? No one. From what I’ve experienced, The WATCH seems to care more about the druggies than they do about the citizens. First thing they want to know is if the druggie is ok? Good heavens, what about the rest of us? I don’t trust Mustard Seed anymore than I did ARCHES.
The poverty/homelessness aspects of drug addiction might benefit from having a less poverty-stricken society where the gap between the rich and the poor does not get wider and wider. What politics in Canada would promote a more equal society? Certainly, what we’ve had over the years, is not accomplishing that.
So you are suggesting a capitalist society run by socialism. Fantasy.
There are other countries who are more socially democratic, but they take their capitalist wealth and do decent equal wealth distribution particularly in the area of education…while, still allowing for individual wealth…..looks good to a Dutch person such as myself! This is why it is never a good idea to do cutbacks to, particularly, postsecondary education. We would want our folks/country, to be at the top of the heap globally in every field whether it be academia or the trades. Perhaps, it is not necessarily unwise to watch, see and possibly adopt good ideas from others, with an open mind.
perhaps so.ab is – however, i suggest we got off this capitalist bulldozer asap, as we are running out planet to plunder, pillage, and rape. what’s next, mars? now there is ironic foreshadowing…a place in space already laid to waste. how does capitalism exploit that place, i wonder?
hard to find reason in anyone continuing to support a system that is so obviously broken and destructive. it may have served some purpose, but it now is so utterly unsustainable that it is the source primary source of the planet’s woes.
Yeh, I know, the sky is falling.
The problem isn’t so much Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism, but rather ego/greed.
good letter and the comments that immediately follow are intelligent, as well. it would be likely be cheaper overall to provide a building and site with trained staff to help ease the life conditions of the homeless. addictions help would be useful for some, but for others, a place to be off the streets throughout the day would be more humane, and would reduce the issues for the general public. there will of course be issues related to that, as behavioural issues would still emerge at the building – so, how to deal with, and even possibly prevent that will require thought. as for location, many already have long urged use of the area by the current shelter, and expand it west as needed. as well, there are nearby businesses which may be happy to sell and relocate. funding needs to be provincial – this is a province related issue, not a lethbridge issue. similar services need to be established throughout the province, so that one area does not get overwhelmed/overburdened by those in need of help.