Recovery camps seek support for continued operation
By Steffanie Costigan - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on July 8, 2023.
Herald file photo
Kii Mah Pii Pii Tsin Healing and Recovery Camp staff work with Blackfoot traditions and healing in nature on the Blood Tribe Reserve last summer. Organizers are seeking support to continue the camps after pilot program funding ended earlier this year.Reports of Indigenous people successfully overcoming addiction by returning to the roots of their culture have been frequently seen. An Indigenous homeless recovery camp program has also seen this success in bringing Indigenous homeless people back to the roots of their culture work in the past.
Funding for the Kii Maa Pii Pii Tsin deep healing recovery camps, however, for this year was not renewed by the City of Lethbridge.
Alvin Mills, the founder of Kii Maa Pii Pii Tsin deep healing recovery camps, talked to The Herald about the process of the recovery camps and the Blackfoot culture implemented within the program.
“In the recovery camp, we’re on Blackfoot traditional lands. The recovery was based on Blackfoot culture and beliefs ceremonies – the participants would stay for a period of seven days, and then we would try to transition them onto recovery treatment center support aftercare wherever we could get them,” said Mills.
The request for the funding was reviewed by the Community Wellbeing and Safety Strategy (CWSS) advisory committee on June 26 and was not supported.
Andrew Malcolm, general manager of Community and Social Development for the City told The Herald the Kii Maa Pii Pii Tsin recovery camp program was a pilot program that was approved for funding from 2022 until March 31, 2023. He explained why the amount proposed amount of $117,663 was not supported and pointed out the many other programs being considered.
“The CWSS makes decisions on funding based on information provided through the CWSS Needs Assessment and Strategy, stakeholder engagement with social service providers connected through the Integrated Coordinate Access (ICA) system, and City administration. When the Kii Maa Pii Pii Tsin program was presented to the CWSS Advisory Committee, it was not supported… there are many proposals and programs being considered/funded with a finite amount of funding.”
Last year’s camps were funded through Ottawa’s Reaching Home – Indigenous & Designated Communities grant which was administered by the City.
It was a three-month pilot project which ran seven-day camps for men and also for women. Staff and participants all went through drug screening.
Recently a request was made for provincial funding. If the request is approved Mills said he is hoping to run the camp for two weeks.
“The plan would be to run the camp two weeks, two weeks on our own with the resources that we can come up with will run it.”
Mills said a rally is being planned in the near future to support the camps.
He also said an agreement with Blood Tribe Health is still in effect to provide resources to the Indigenous homeless people in the recovery camps program.
Mills is a Blood Tribe member who has been working with the homeless Indigenous people and their addiction struggles for over 10 years. Mills emphasizes he is not trying to compete with other service providers in the city – he simply is passionate about trying to help the homeless. Mills expressed his strong relationship with the homeless people and raised concern about the increase of young people on the streets.
“I do have a big connection with the people that are struggling here. I am seeing a younger and younger population here.”
Mills reports last year’s recovery camp was able to assist 40 homeless people, six of them non-Indigenous; he also said eight to nine of the homeless individuals he is aware of were underage runaways.
Mikala Dalton, former volunteer of Secure, Assist, Guard, and Engage (SAGE), said she has seen an impact from the recovery camp and the racism the Indigenous homeless people experience.
“Their recovery camps give them somewhere to go, somewhere to be. And it’s with people that they trust and are good with their company, because it’s a lot of times they would leave somewhere else. They’re not treated well; the racism is huge. So, they’re with people who can truly understand and truly help them recover. Like really recover because this is not a good life; there are so many deaths,” said Dalton.
Mills is a residential school survivor – he spent nine years at the residential school of St. Paul’s Anglican Church and an additional four years in the St. Mary’s Residential school on the Blood Reserve. He noted the process reconciliation would take and the lack of respect for Indigenous being a Canadian challenge to overcome.
“The most harmful impact of residential schools have been the loss of pride and self-respect of Aboriginal people, and the lack of respect that non-Aboriginal people have been raised to have for their Aboriginal neighbours. Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem; it is a Canadian one. Reconciliation will take some time.”
Mills said he is grateful to Richard Red Crow from the Blood Tribe administration for the support he has given.
Kii Maa Pii Pii Tsin is looking for more support and volunteers to help in their recovery camp programs. Those interested in volunteering can reach out to Mills through email at alvinator44@outlook.com.
23-22
I have listened to Alvin Mills and know his heart is in the right place. There is a gap right now as we wait to see the new facilities built open and the recent 750 treatment beds throughout the province be built and open, and I think for this year it would have been wise to support him. He learned from last year how to improve his concept and had planned some changes.
Right now we see a reduction somewhat of the people hanging out on our streets and it is probably because they are in Calgary to sell their services for the Stampede:drugs, prostitution, etc.
Police have had an impact recently as well with stepped up patrols by peace officers and police and some strategy changes, but this camp would have been one more tool, for now, that would get people off the streets and a chance to detox and think about treatment. There could have been something set up to run them out to the camp and off the streets. Even if one life was saved, it would have been a success. Is it the answer to all the issues? Of course not, but it would have been one more alternative.
The criminal elements, about 75-150( it fluctuates), who thrive on the streets, the ones who commit crimes, sell drugs and supply prostitution services all night are the ones sleeping around the businesses, backyards, garages, destroying property, cutting though fences, tagging fences and buildings leaving piles of garbage, feces and urinating where people walk and off course syringes will always remain on the streets no matter how much housing is provided, because the streets are their area of operations and they now feel they own it and can do whatever they want because they have not had deterrents, because they were allowed to continue without any fines or charges. They know it and so they continue in their lawless ways, which allows gangs to grow in numbers and the issues grow.
Alvin’s camp may get one or two of these, but there is another group that are not the ones committing all the crimes that still have a chance for a camp like Alvin’s and is why for this year I would support it. It would be one more toll police could give when someone is sleeping in the doorways or in around the businesses or back yards to suggest as they move them along.
Alvin has the passion to make this work and when people are being banished or kicked off the Indigenous communities nearby, it gives one more place for them to find their ways back instead of coming to the city streets that I call the ‘killing fields’ after seeing to many senseless deaths.
Society has taken the wrong turn by condoning this drug use, allowing it to blossom on our streets, enabling them to continue and demanding less police actions.
Well we see now how that has worked out with some of the highest overdose rates and crime where safe consumption sites and hundreds of non-profits flourish, sucking billions out of the tax dollars, instead of that money being put into effective treatment programs.
If there was $662,000 put into a childrens playground in the epic-center of the homeless/addiction issues in this city, there should have been some funding in place to support Alvin’s project by Kipp, out or town and off the killing fields or our streets which would have helped until we get those other treatment facilities online.
When the Calgary Stampede ends and other events this summer come to this city, you will see a dramatic increase on our streets of these criminal elements who come back to sell their drugs and other contraband, along with the prostitution services . . . they are all connected and the ones with who force their ‘wives’ to prostitute are the same or are with the same people who sell drugs, steal bikes and anything they can sell. That is what a gang does!
I wish you wll Alvin and hope and pray for a miracle so that your camp can set up for the several weeks this year and be successful in saving some lives. The Indigenous have been hit the hardest in this crisis, losing hundreds of their people just locally . . . it must end and that will only happen by getting back to what kept fatal overdoses low: firm policing, backed up by our drug courts so that those treated will not have a criminal record, and effecitive mental health and addiction treatment programs.
This is rapidly reaching out into our neighbourhoods in our city, and many of our own young people have died and are dying because of all the enabling and not enough treatment or policing!
For me . . . after fighting for almost 8 years now to get more effective treatment programs and to stop the enabling I am walking away. Too many people have given up the fight and those who fight face false attacks from even politicians to silence us, assaults, multiple threats, with little support buy media or police.
It has been a long thankless and costly few years and I and the hundreds I worked with to do so all know our city would have been just like the Vancouver DTES if we had not acted and protested.
Everyone wants to complain, but few want to do anything about it!
Alvin, I wish you well and hope you are blessed with the power and strength to continue your fight to save lives!
Right on ewingbt and Alvin Mills.
Our weak ( increasingly more and more residents are pointing this out)and very open camera shy(they have no trouble with more and more incamera) council members like Hyggen and Schimdt- Rempel need to quit pretending that they are not really too thrilled about more in town single resident occupancy units , that are death traps. More group centers of treatment out of town and away from drugdealers.
Schmidt-Rempel clearly wants to be mayor one day. I know she is very concerned about her political image to help get her there. People are aware of how she strives to only publicly address,girl guide leader approved subjects. Perhaps, she should step aside and try that next time.
ewingbt and people like you have had more impact than you know. We would be even more similar to Naniamo B.C.., if it wasn’t for your shared knowledge.
Our weak council is up against a very powerful gravy train. . But we didn’t elect them to hide in,incamera meetings. Just like in Vancouver ,they should all be fired!
Did the Blood tribe council offer any money? Do they have fancy condos to sell in Calgary and the States? If so, perhaps those funds would help?
How is the Blood Tribe doing with fixing or rebuilding all those homes they boarded people out of on the Reserve?