Enabling drug addicts isn’t helping them
By Lethbridge Herald on July 30, 2022.
Editor:
I don’t understand, and I never will, how there is a portable SCS bud right in the middle of where tent city used to be and yet “do gooders” continue to hand out needles by the handfuls to the occupants.
The same “do gooders” were behind starting an SCS the first time because it works (in their minds). Now they hand out needles only feet away from the SCS saying “just shoot up in your tent, it’s the best method.”
Doesn’t that prove they don’t believe in their own “best practice”?
Lethbridge’s easy stand on the issues is opening the door for more homeless people to come here. Free food from food banks and soup kitchens, free tents, lax enforcement of trespassing laws, we aren’t teaching them to fish, we are making it easier for them to just keep existing as is.
Drug dealers swooping in to profit from the increased population of users, gangs recruiting with offers of a bed to sleep in, our soft stance has left the door open for the criminal element to thrive.
You’d have to be naive to not see what’s happening.
If the number of overdoses increase (in tents and areas around them) then the ultra-lefties can claim the current program doesn’t work.
Here’s the hypocritical point they are missing: to try and prove their point they are literally using the people they say they care about as guinea pigs. They are now the ones who don’t care if people survive; their point is only reinforced if people overdose and they can blame the current programs. They are quite literally gambling with the lives of addicts to try and prove their political point.
Follow the money of directors’ pay in the social services sector (think SCS director $250,000+ again), then you’ll know the true motive.
The current program is lacking in transitional housing, it needs major work … neither the UCP nor the NDP focused on this component when in power. Shame on both of them.
The current situation of tents is the outcome of failed policies of both parties. Neither one of them has a moral high ground from which to finger point. No more studies, committees, plans, consultations.
Every 12-step program teaches the difference between helping and enabling, I’d suggest our city council read about it; right now they are enabling and the time for action is long overdue.
Brent Hansen
Lethbridge
16-15
But Brent the coddle-masters are dug-in deep!
The Shelter crowd, ex SCS employees, will do anything and everything they can to keep the addicted/homeless downtown. It will be a fight and of course the Shelter has support from the Province, they have inherent support from City Staffers, they have support of the Churches, and they are “running the city” out of their back offices it would appear.
We , the DO NO HARM TO ANYONE Committee, on the other hand have very little support, however, we believe you DO NO HARM TO ANYONE and it is “the good fight”! You do no harm to businesses, do no harm to residents and you do no harm to the Blackfoot People. You do not allow non taxpaying organizations to install non taxpayers into your downtown and kill it!
Unfortunately, our plan, puts the Shelter out of business, so they are fighting for one thing, their survival in the city, at the cost of all the taxpayers who provide for their existence!
The Shelter has not signed a good neighbor agreement, and the Shelter has all the necessary tools and support to kill our downtown.
We predicted that there would be 700 Addicts in the Downtown if they chose downtown, in 5 years (from last year)! We are on schedule, we have grown by about 70 in the last year, which is all that is needed to meet the target. A target that provides the Shelter with tremendous revenue, and the taxpayers with a terrific crime rate and a destroyed downtown. We watch businesses waffle as we try to get them to realize the impact. We are getting tired of uttering WAKE UP Lethbridge. If we do not succeed in DOING NO HARM TO ANYONE, then Lethbridge only has itself to blame, and it will not be the fault of local politicians. Complacency Lethbridge takes that prize!
Politicians can only do so much and the momentum that the Shelter has and the strength they garner with every shuttle bus arriving with more addicted is becoming an empire unto itself!
The UCP and NDP will continue the same path, NDP started it, UCP continues to deal with the Shelter and feed them money directly, bypassing the City. So need I say, again, Speak up? Neudorf and Phillips avoid the topic, and do nothing but pray you will vote for them, the encampments grow! I will make a prediction again (only because I have seen it numerous times before)
“Next year will be the worst of all the years in the past and will set a new standard of exceedingly worse years to follow”. The city will now realize they have lost total control. We will remain number 1 on the Crime list and the gap between 1 and 2 will widen at an alarming rate.
The solution is simple, housing the addicted on the 509 makes it less attractive for those who are coming to Lethbridge for a good time. They will not put up with being told they have a home on the 509 and leave the area. Leaving us with the Blackfoot addicted being treated by the Blackfoot. This stops the never ending uncontrollable expansion.
House 700 in Lethbridge? By the time you attempt to build housing for 700 there will be 1000 more, waiting inline “for their free housing”!
Meanwhile the Shelter will be rolling in the dough and the downtown will be a ghost of its former self.That will not stop the self righteous from screaming Lethbridge is never doing enough, in fact you should get used to it! You have ONE chance left and that chance is slowly being crushed by the “powers within the nonprofits” …….. http://lethccc.com
I predict that within 5 years, downtown will be a slum. Many businesses will be shuttered. No one will want to go there, nor will people feel safe there.
Sad that our elected officials are allowing this to happen.
Yes, we have spent $50 million on the Yates, CASA, and SAAG in the last 7 years, the arts to attract people and another $15 million to revitalize 3rd Avenue along Galt Gardens, add Festive Square, but we continue to allow the issues that keep people away to flourish.
Now, the same people that have cost us dearly decided that to make their point, they would set up in the Civic Center area next to city hall!
The tail is allowed to continue to wag the dog! Maybe we should all join the club and get high, forget what is going on around us and allow the government to pick up the tab!
We can always just get the PM to print some more money, right!!
I guess it is time to break out the protest signs and hit the streets again!
As we follow the Vancouver DTES model, we become like the Vancouver DTES and our Downtown will be sacrificed! They have already taken over the Library and the recently built bus terminal which is a $22 million building that no one wants to lease office space in or park their vehicles, because they do not want to have to wade through the addicts. What do we know though? We just blindly pay our property taxes, our income taxes and say, ” Oh Well, What Are We Going To Do? “, ” We Can’t Do Anything About It! “.
Maybe people will wake up once the downtown is destroyed, property taxes increased, while services are slashed. Someone has to pay to support these people. Donor dollars will disappear as well!
This is our city and we do have a say, but continue to allow 100 to 150 people cost us millions every year along with the non-profits to dictate what is to be done!
I’m sure the hysterics will help encourage patronage downtown.
Since we are in the mood to soothsay, I believe the investments in downtown will greatly improve the appeal of spending time there. And the younger population will understand the problems we are speaking of as Big City issues and deal with them accordingly. A shelter, meanwhile, will help manage health and care in the longterm.
Rending of garments and gnashing of dentures will remain unhelpful. Thus spake Fescue.
indeed, the younger generations appear to be well ahead in terms of social conscience and empathy than are the generations today represented by the middle aged to aged.
that said, i am sure the best solutions ahead have not been tried yet. let us try to criminalise drug use, and create a war on drugs that can be taken word wide. subjectively deeming drugs to be illegal for all peoples will be effective in at least two ways: 1) we can make work for under worked policing and judicial systems here and the world over; that will allow nations to fill jails everywhere, which, in turn, will provide decent jobs in prison building (mining, transport and manufacture of materials as well as construction)…even sadists will have an opportunity to contribute to society whilst working as rogue prison guards; those many decent jobs created will bring about an economic boom; in turn, the prices of drugs subjectively deemed to be illegal will grow so high – way, way above the cost to grow and bring to market – such that drugs will be so unaffordable that the lazy, unemployed addict could not possibly afford them anymore. problem solved! however, if by some impossible flaw in capitalism that does not work, we could 2) bring over the former president of the philippines, duterte, as a multimillion dollar consultant so as to show us how summary executions solve all complex social issues in a mere moment.
Great plan, biff. The ideal sort of win-lose scenario that appeals to those in power 🙂
as i enter this note, my entry is still at a plus 1…the literal must have taken the entry seriously. come on folks, hit the neg icon…the acclaim is killing me.
speaking of power, was it you that once noted the great book by bob altemeyer, the authoritarians. it was suggested by someone in this forum several years ago – just a great read. if so, thank you…otherwise, thank you to whomever suggested it. maybe the best self help book i have come across, as it helped me to not only better understand where many come from, but it helped me to acknowledge my own authoritarian blemishes.
hmm, are the negs poor reviews of altemeyer’s great book?
You mention dentures, so as we speak a large dental office is moving from downtown out to the Fairview area to escape the issues downtown that has plagued them, some of which are B&E’s, assaults, thefts and the high costs of having a security guard on duty during he day at a cost that must be at least $5,000 to $7,000 per month or $60,000 to $84,000 per year. Guess who had those costs added to the dental care?
Sad that people fail to see all of the new businesses that open and fail, or long term ones that either move or die!
Yet the city keeps on pumping millions into downtown thinking it will actually attract people. The novelty of the Festival Square will wear off and all the money pumped into downtown will not make a difference. But for those of us that have suffered losses downtown, closely observed the situation for several years and actually are paying attention with open eyes, what do we know?
What is the name if this dental office, Brent? I would like to verify your story.
Not sure why you are asking Brent, if you think I am him you are mistaken.
I am pretty sure I am not allowed to state the name on this platform, as you are well aware, the moderator does moderate/censor comments.
If you want to verify the story, why don’t you think of the largest dental offices downtown, then when you are shopping at Safeways on MM Drive, pay attention to some new signs on a large building south of there.
Hilarious! I could mention so many other businesses! Proves my point!
You claim that you could name ‘so many other businesses’, though you won’t name one. I’ll ask a friend here to drive me down to the south Safeway to talk to this dental office – will report back later.
Fescue, I am trying to be patient with you, but you are the one who attacks those of us that are paying attention, talking with the homeless/addicts, seeing the businesses fail or move, while you sit back in your ‘lazy’ boy chair and demand we prove it to you.
Ignorance flourishes! If I thought it would do any good I would personally take you for a drive downtown, as well as past the dental office on 5th street south that moved out by Safeway, but I know you would still stand in your ingorance. People die because of this type of attitude and do not get the help they need because of it.
Do your research! Get out of your lazy boy and spend a few hours each day downtown and get enlightened. Go to the bus station and use the washroom there and the library and sit and read a book while looking out the windows and inside.
OH BOY!!!
let’s face it – the parking downtown is annoying, and it costs a few cents, whilst it is abundant and free adjacent to m.m dr.
Yep, sure! It must be the parking and nothing to do with having to have CCTV, a security guard costing over $60,000 per year, threats to staff, assaults, break and enter.
Must be the parking! What is your drug of choice?
Kids remember, ‘don’t do drugs’ please.
yes, look what happens to eggs frying in a hot pan…hmm, maybe better to not fry eggs on such an overkill heat.
Coddle-masters in action!!
Fescue, I don’t believe you understand the principles of numbers and saturation. If we have 700 addicts in Lethbridge we will have more addicts in density than DTES Vancouver has per square block. We have 100 square blocks of downtown. Edmonton has 320 square blocks and 2800 addicts on the street. They have more Downtown left then we have as a total. There will be no downtown if we reach 700+ and we are on target for that number in less than 4 years. So spend away!
An interesting metric, Turbine-wine: homeless per hectare.
The problem with the alarmism is that it offers no opportunity for experimentation to find a solution. If you oppose poverty, mental health issues and addiction while also opposing any whiff of a solution because of your fixation on the almighty tax dollar, then of course nothing will happen. My advice to you and Barry and Brent and others is to get behind a practical solution and stop frantically clicking your ruby-red shoes to take you back to Kansas.
I support a well-managed shelter with health care, and I largely agree with biff on the futility of trying to enforce your way out if a social crisis related to much deeper ills like inequality (of opportunity and of outcomes), and acquisitive individualism as promoted these past 50 years of the neoliberal paradigm. In other words, we have become a alienated and uncaring society and these issues are the result. More coddling is needed.
Hmm I have a practical solution. It is DO NO HARM TO ANYONE. It can be found at https://lethccc.com What you seem to forget is their is another community concerned about this. Its called the Blackfoot and the Blood Reserve. They do not want their people in Lethbridge, ONLY, the nonprofits want them in Lethbridge. If you remove all the Indigenous and create a home outside of Lethbridge with buses, suddenly your caring nonprofits are out of a job. That is why they are fighting tooth and nail trying to keep the Indigenous Children from their parents. I would really suggest Fescue that you go beyond your social understanding because when it comes to Lethbridge its quite limited!
do no harm – indeed: rescind the harmful and crimes against humanity laws that criminalise drugs and the right of a person to choose for their body.
If that person swallows up all the ambulance time, increases crime rates and does not contribute to society and never intends to, does your theory still apply?
legal drugs will greatly reduce their cost, and cheap drugs will mean few to no crimes needed to afford them. legal drugs will mean quality control, and safer drugs will mean far fewer emergencies. get it, yet? and, you can still get to condemn people for their choices, although that is always petty.
ok – great pile of negs.
so, then let us try criminalising drugs, so that addicts will steal in order to afford them; illegal drugs will mean no quality control, thus more dangerous drugs, thus more emergencies due to toxicity and overdoses.
Agreed Brent! But, no one is listening and it appears some, and I only say ‘some’ of the non-profits have become addicted to the income they earn from operating those non-profits and know if there are no addicts, there is no finances for them either.
I hope you have better luck than me. I really don’t think anyone will actually wake up until whatever supports or services they use are slashed, to pay for the high costs of these people who are allowed to slowly kill themselves while raping the city.
If anyone really want to help them, they would stop enabling them. I do believe some of the non-profits need to have the taxpayer dollars cut, or as they screamed a couple of years regarding police, ‘defunded’.
I am going to focus on other methods of change, since this nobody appears to understanding what people like you and I area attempting to explain to them. They have been brainwashed by the harm reduction groups, some of whom you mentioned, and blindly follow them like the rats followed the pied-piper.
Great letter full of accurate observations and remarks though!
yeah, i saw a couple of those lazy people you all are talking about in the park downtown just the other day. you know, the ones that chose to invite heavy trauma into their lives. those addicts for severe abuse and neglect; those that could not wait until being born in order to enjoy a good drink, having had their brains mercilessly ravaged by the irreversible effects of alcohol saturation whilst trying to become a living being.
in addition to having their future and innocence and trust and ability to accept and share love snuffed out, those lazy bums also set their career path on becoming addicts and downtrodden street people from the get-go, so as they could enjoy the lovely year round weather lethbridge has to offer, not to mention the awesome violence and coddling camaraderie that comes with street life and jail time…so many wonderful people one gets to associate with on the streets and in jail…a real forever vacation.
but, back to the two people i saw in galt gardens…yes, i also witnessed the raping of our city, as they shuffled along, hardly lifting their feet at all, scuffing our beautiful grass. others raped the park even worse, laying on the grass for extended periods and smothering it with their overstuffed bodies, so chock full of the city’s finest cuisine coming from the shelter. yes, a lifelong vacation they live, as the god loving condemners note. the easy life – you would each join them, and have said that much; but then, perhaps, you would be too close to the natives among them.
i wish you each a stick bigger than the last they were hit with, and the strength so as to be able to hit them harder than they have been hit to date. that will fix them. the coddling must stop and the free vacations must cease.
Biff or should I say Fescue, since you appear to one of the same, you really have missed the point, completely.
The only way we are going to help these people is to be firm with them and create an environment that will help them decide to reach out for help on their. You mention alcohol but forgot the drugs such as Meth that destroys their bones, muscles and of course brain cells, which causes many to walk bent over, shuffle, lose their teeth. You missed the part when they are up at night breaking into businesses, homes, garages, damaging property to steal things they can sell to support their addictions or so they can have a bike to ride or kids wagon to help carry their things. You forgot the assaults, the intimidation and threats on our citizens and the damages to the downtown businesses, slowly killing the downtown, which some of the non-profits want so their jobs are set and for some of them that want to take over downtown and use it as a prize to get back at us Colonialists, English or Whiteys as they call us even to our faces.
Ignorance flourishes and you really are unaware of all the factors at play, many not for the good of these people, but for their own ’cause’ or financial gains.
Some of these non-profits need to be defunded while one in particular, Alpha House, should be evicted from our city since it has shown a complete disrespect for the residents of that shelter, for the businesses and for the citizens of this city.
You have not read many of my comments that stated we are slowly killing these people by following the same failed plan of Harm Reduction that hasn’t worked in BC after 19 years of trying.
As one person stated, and it is a term used by professional, ceritified addiction psychologists and psychiatrists, tough love is needed to solve this problem. There is literally no rock bottom as there was decades ago for the addict to hit because all these groups are feeding them, clothing them and giving them tents to break the law and pitch in parks. For some of us that have been deployed and lived under extreme conditions in various parts, we know that people adapt and are conditioned to survive in any condition. Even people who go camping with a tent adapt to not having all those nice conveniences.
Your rant once again has accurate observations to the truth of what is happening. It is why we see so many people die needlessly across this country. 10 years from now we will probably be accused of genocide once again and accused of doing nothing but enabling them.
Wake up call: Indigenous bands on Vancouver Island are already realizing that Harm Reduction is a failure and enabling addicts is only killing them and preventing them from seeking help.
How many have you watched die from their addictions needlessly? How many times were you assaulted when you were just trying to protect them and others around them? How many businesses have died in the downtown region in the last 5 years?
Here a just a few names to remember who are no longer with us: Anthony Cotton, Helen Perkins, Darryl Caldwell and others that I could only state their first name, but have lose their battles with their addictions.
Over 7,500 Canadians died last year from overdoses!
can you at all, honestly, acknowledge that the crimes are due to the high cost of their addictions, and, that the high cost of their drugs is due to the illegality of the drugs, which causes the prices to be ridiculously more expensive than they cost to bring to market. thus, if given the drugs they are addicted to, or, better still,, drugs were not made criminal – those laws are a crime against humanity – there would be little to no crime related to the addictions. we would have addicts, but not criminals, because the drugs are legal and cheap. also, the drugs would be so much safer, due to quality control and all. and good folk such as downtown business owners and all property owners would be spared the theft issues.
maybe you liked the old days of liquor prohibition, where there were criminal orgs fighting for control, and people got poisoned, blinded and so forth, and even died because the products lacked quality control.
that out of the way, there would still be addicts, so you and the like would still get to condemn people for their issues – exciting!
That’s sweet pd. biff and I haven’t been amalgamated for some time. We, er, I, um, they appreciate it.
I didn’t recommend that book, biffescue, but I do think I’ll read it.
And you have made a good argument that the vitriol here is pure jealousy of the beautiful lives these people lead. Boy oh boy it would be great to have an addiction or mental health issue or financial ruin to put you on the gravy train.
btw, the boys took care of the freakish anomoly of a positive rating. Phew.
great name. alas, i think we, i, are busted…once again. mind you, while great minds so often think alike, a somewhat astute reader here would note we were not so much on the same page re mandated vaxing. thus, there is so much more with which to vilify biff than fes.
btw – even where we have not agreed, i respect your thoughtful entries…shoot, there i go, patting myself on the back.
Thank you ewingbt and others.
Some people are not going to even consider your positions. In some cases it is because their jobs and empires depend on it. You can usually tell by their lame counter remarks and how much time they have on the job.
Is the recovery center closed on the reserve again this summer?
How many more homes have been boarded up on the reserve?
Why did nonprofits stop providing transportation to and from the reserve?
Should Lethbridge do what some reserves have done by limiting access and drugs entering their space?
Many people don’t want to stay at the shelter. They don’t like it for a number of reasons. They want their own space to do drugs and crash in their tent. They want freedom to sleep with and when they want. They want possession of their drugs and weapons. Cell phones are really hard to keep possession of. Others in the shelter and tent areas are always trying to steal them
Thank you Montreal13 . . . I don’t even bother with Biff or Fescue and suspect they have unlterior motives.
For me, I don’t comment for likes, nor do I hide behind monikers/post names. I tried to state facts, facts that I can back up if challenged, but do not bother arguing on platforms like this. It is obvious that some are not that blind and have something to lose if the encampments are resolved and addicts are all successfully treated.
I am not sure what the status is on the Kainai or Pikani communities, but I do know Dennis Bremner at one point had a meeting with some leadership on the Kainai, and may have those answers. Also there was a link at the bottom of the ‘Turbine-Wine’ comment that has some infromation on that.
Some of us truly want to end this carnage on our streets and some of us are tired of seeing people die that we have tried to build a rapport with them to try and help them and be there for them if they decide it is time for treatment. I worked downtown and daily had to deal with the homeless and addicts. I know about many break and enters, assaults and was assaulted twice during my duties, and lost track how many times I was threatened or attempts were made to initimidate me, but never stopped trying to help them. For several days they are fine . . . . then, a bad day, they hate you and everyone else . . . normal addictive behaviour.
I have talked to many who won’t stay at the shelter and you touched some of the important points, but here are a few more:
I personally didn’t go to very this, but I have heard similar stories from people that work/volunteer at the Alpha House Shelter. That is why I truly believe we need to evict Alpha House from Lethbridge, bring in a community operated shelter that doesn’t have any of the present administration employed . . . Starting fresh . . . doing it the right way!
Right now we have some of the same people who worked at the SCS working there and in my mind that just is not working when it comes to resolving the issues that cost so many lives, while destroying countless others, while we burn up taxpayer/donor dollars.
We need to revamp our policies and laws and I truly believe, as others stated, tough love is the only way we do it, with firm policing and increased drug courts, so these people do not end up with a criminal record just because of their addiction.
It worked in the southern US and it will work here. We just have to stop encouraging and enalbing them, which will be a battle since a couple of non-profits in this city on the streets are not just donor funded, but received government funding the administration staff is paid . . . so they will no longer have wages.
There are a lot of people making money off of this crisis and are like the money they are earning. One comment stated that MSTH dumped a bunch of people in our city from Medicine Hat and I would like to know their motives for doing this.
Addicts will assault their grandmother in a wheelchair to get her money to pay for their drugs, they will steal from anyone . . . even their own . . . I watch this happen often, just on the street . . . they have with someone for a few hours, they do drugs . . . but some only do a little . . . then one passes out . . . they go through his pockets taking his drugs and money and leave him . . . no concern if he will die from an overdose! I see the girls getting their purses/bags stolen . . . roughed up or hit by their ‘husbands’ as they call them, their boyfriend pimps that traffic them!
That is a brief look at life on the streets that grows as we continue to enable and encourage them . . . making it hard to get them the help they need!
Facts have documentation that can be referenced and checked. People who offer facts indicate a source.
What many folks here are offering is hearsay, anecdotes and tall tales. In a word, alarmist bunk. Well, two words.
Again, stirring up resentment and fear is unhelpful. Offering solutions and a tolerance for experimention is helpful.
Just ignore these blind, ignorant people that ask for it all to be explained to them just to attack the facts as well ewingbt. Anything you say, they will attack. They don’t have any facts, their comments show they have not been on the streets downtown, see what they want to see and when you mention actual ways to resolve the issues, they attack it and say you don’t offer any solutions, yet they fail to offer any themselves.
They will reap what they are sowing!
Don’t waste your time! They are armchair governors that couldn’t gather any valuable information to turn into intel and drive past an encampment and suddenly know everything about it and their residents. People are dying because of people like them and while we were shutting down the SCS, they were always spewing disinformation and attacking us in the same manner! They are true antagonists!
It is time we rallied the troops and get the shelter shut down and replaced, I agree and that we formed another alliance group to coordinate the actions and protests to do so!
We shut down the SCS and the LOPS and we will shutdown the shelter and replace it with one that respects it’s clients and the citizens of this city! This is our city, not Alpha House’s!
The safe community committee is failing to protect the community and has been compromised and swayed, making it unable to deal with the issues.
I think it is time, and by fall we should have our own citizen’s group put together that WILL get results, like we got when the last Council failed.
I still have faith in this Council, but there are some on Council and in the administration that need to be retired, so we can take back our City! I hope I will see you at the meeting. I think I remember you from the last battles we had.
Maybe we can somehow get Brent as well since his letter showed he has a good take of the issues.
Do you even read what you write? Shut down this, shut down that … You’ll have to help the unanointed by connecting the dots from this to compassion and ‘saving lives’. That is, beyond the claptrap of tough live.
ok – let’s round up the troops. attack ’em on two flanks. i think we should begin with an air assault, at night, to soften ’em ahead of a predawn land mission. we had best use smart bombs with the air assault, so as to be sure we only hit the homeless and not any civilians. any homeless women and children found should be mowed down like in vietnam (we can build the ditches afterward); all tents and structured shelters, with or without an address, should be burned to the ground. study up on the usual marching songs, so we sound like we know what we are doing. gosh golly this is going to be so much fun!
in the beginning, pursuit driver made god.
hmm, that gets a quick neg…ok, in the beginning turbine-wine made god.