Application made for harm reduction site
By Lethbridge Herald on February 4, 2021.
Herald photo by Trevor Busch
The proposed site of a harm reduction operation is at 422 13 St. N.Tim Kalinowski
Lethbridge Herald
tkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com
A Calgary-based harm reduction society is seeking permission to distribute clean needles and other items to prevent sexually transmitted diseases among Lethbridge’s most vulnerable.
HIV Community Link has applied for a development permit from the City of Lethbridge to operate what it is calling a resource centre to provide harm reduction and needle distribution to Lethbridge residents.
Prior to the Kenney government’s change of policy and the suspension of funding for new supervised injection sites in Alberta, the organization had planned, alongside other local organizations, to open new SCS facilities in both Medicine Hat and Calgary.
Despite this previous history, HIV Community Link director of community relations and acting executive director, Ana Glavan, said the organization has no plans to pursue permission to open a new SCS in Lethbridge.
“HIV Community Link has been offering supports to those at risk of, or living with, HIV for 37 years now,” Glavan explained, “and we started offering some services in Lethbridge at the end of October 2020 to respond to a gap in supports available to people at risk of HIV in that area.
“We are not offering any kind of supervised consumption services in Lethbridge,” she confirmed. “Our mandate in Lethbridge is to support people who are at higher risk of HIV and Hepatitis C, and offer them support services, work on prevention, and ultimately, after being established, educational services as well for training or workshops.”
Glavan also confirmed her organization has no affiliation with the organization known as ARCHES in Lethbridge, which ran the previous SCS, and no future plans to bring SCS services back into Lethbridge.
“We have no plans in the foreseeable future to pursue any kind of supervised consumption service model for the Lethbridge area,” she stated. “We are in the Lethbridge area to provide support services, confidential services, to people who are at risk for HIV and Hepatitis C, and we are building our (resource centre) model on models we already have success with in Calgary and Medicine Hat, and in our 37-year legacy.”
On the topic of needle distribution, The Herald asked Glavan directly if her organization plans to put any limits on the amount of clean needles it will distribute in Lethbridge.
“We will distribute safer sex and safer substance use supplies to reduce incidents of HIV and other bloodborne diseases,” she responded. “We will help clean up needles and other drug use debris. Other organizations in the centre of the city also have a collective responsibility on this one, and we are trying to partner with everyone who has an interest in supporting this population in getting them into wellness, and making sure they are safe and the risk of HIV and Hep C is reduced.”
According to its website, HIV Community Link currently provides supports for those suffering with HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, and provides sexually transmitted disease testing. The organization also provides safer sex and safer consumption supplies, navigation of community resources – connections to services such as addiction treatment, housing, funding, basic need, and employment supports.
In order to receive a permit to operate such a service it requires a change in permitted use of the organization’s local resource centre. The City will require the organization to provide a good neighbour communication plan and follow the standard appeal process. Lethbridge residents will have until no later than Mar. 1 should they wish to register a formal appeal with the Subdivision and Appeal Board pertaining to the permit process in this instance.
For more information on HIV Community Link visit https://hivcl.org/
Follow @TimKalHerald on Twitter
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And now…ladies and gentlemen…here he is..the star of our show…and you know he’s got so much to repeat…uhh..say…DB!
hahahahahhahahaha
You don’t have stats to make up on your own? You don’t have an argument that is mostly thinly veiled racism?
I’ve kept checking the article to see if that joker posts.
The City Administration will push this through unless the citizens endeavor to stop it. Free needles, for what? Just another SCS in disguise.
Even though Uncle Buck has never answered my questions, I will answer his. I am not against harm reduction in the context that is outlined. What I am against is Supervised Consumption. It does exactly what I say it does. It allows the hardcore user to experiment with concoctions solidifying his/her addiction based on the premise “they will save me”. SCSs have always been the first choice of dealers who make their own drugs. So Bucko makes a batch, and calls on one of his junkies. He tells the junkie, here is a freebee, take it to the SCS and shoot it up. Its powerful and I want to be sure you are okay. Betty Bloop then heads to the SCS, injects and suddenly the SCS crew are jumping on her heart, injecting her with Naloxone and anything else they have. They bring her back from death. Betty goes back to Bucko and says, jeez that stuff killed me. So Bucko tosses the batch and starts over. So dealers really really need SCSs!
That is totally different from stopping the spread of infectious diseases among the drug population. I am not going to get into a debate as to whether this is the “right location” or not, that’s a whole new discussion.
If they intend on handing out the syringes at the door, then its bound to affect all the neighboring businesses and I know Uncle Buck if you owned one of them and saw your business drop by X percent below COVID Levels because of the people hanging around the site, you would be among the others stating its not the place.
If for instance they intend on handing them out at the soup kitchen where they already meet then the impact will be nil. But, that has to be explained by the applicant when they go to council.
Generally I find the people who see no problem with any location have never owned or run a business in their life and have no concept as to impact on foot traffic if that’s all your business relies on. If you are not a big conglomerate, or a business with a large internet presence, then having customers try to grab your door handle while stepping around spew, feces or the author of both, does not increase foot traffic, I can assure you.
So glad many of you were looking forward to my remarks, it shows you truly want to learn something even though terribly difficult for you. Koodoes! lol
Uncle Buck, have you noticed the 1000 or so junkies SCS said they saved a month has not turned into 1000 dead people laying around Lethbridge yet? How can that be? Its a miracle…..not!
I live downtown; I walk most places around downtown. Before: I always saw discarded needles laying about when Arches was opperating! Now I find none, zero discarded needles in my walkabouts downtown! CLEARLY there is a direct correlation between “Free Needles and Discarded needles!”
If Free Needles are going to again be handed out the City Of Lethbridge and the Calgary-based harm reduction society will clearly be Liable for any injuries! The City Of Lethbridge knows fullwell, beyond all doubt their aproving of this harm reduction society and free needle distribution is approving of more Discarded used needles!
Sure: They will help clean up needles and other drug use debris.
During the Arches fiasco there also were many teams of people tasked with the job of picking up discarded needles! Yet every day on my walks I always found discarded needles in and around the downtown area and verious city parks! PROVING free needle distrabution is a mockery! The past free needle distrabution proves it is a bad idea, only fools refuse to learn from past mistakes!
I agree DogKnox if the intent is to hand out needles by the case/box as ARCHES/SCS did, then its a non starter.
Nothing has changed from the days of the SCS as far as other entities handing out needles, so whatever they are doing is what this new application should do. If the intent is to duplicate the stupidity of the SCS, and do it out there front door, it will not fly
Here we go again . . . Safe Consumption Site version 2.0 . . . brought to you by the old SCS gang I would guess that have been running the ILLEGAL tent in parks such as Galt Gardens, showing a complete disrespect for laws in this city and province!
More enabling and less hope for all the addicts the original SCS created! More people will die on our streets because of it and once again the police we have to be administering Naloxone to the addicts that just left the site and overdosed within a block, just like they did with the original SCS!
Tim Slaney or should I say perhaps Uncle Buck has no care for the people he enables to do more drugs without supports for treatment, he just wants his face in the news and on the Podcasts such as the one in Vancouver!
Lethbridge was just seeing a reduction in addiction issues before someone starting shipping in more addicts in the past few weeks! New people on the streets from Vancouver, Edmonton, Red Deer, Saskatoon that I have talked to . . . who paid for them to come here??
When will the people in this city stand up and say ” ENOUGH . . . WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE !”
How many more neighbourhoods need to be plundered and pillaged . . . how many more parks need to be taken over by addicts . . . do we have to wait until they have completely taken over the downtown region???
Wake up people! We have another Vancouver DTES in the making! That is itself if the biggest example of how badly enabling drug users fails and kills more than it saves! This is not fearmongering . . . look at Galt Gardens and the groups the stay there . . . they will take over the parks on the Northside as well!
FACTS: The first safe injection site opened in 2003 in Vancouver DTES, and the greater DTES is less than 20,000 people, yet for years they pumped over $360 million into 300 social services and housing programs, and millions more into constant repatriation of parks taken over by addicts.
YET . . . after billions blown that they could have used on effective treatment programs, the numbers of addicts, fatal overdoses, homeless, crime stats and costs have ALL continued to RISE!!!
Those are FACTS that can seen by coroners reports and studies by SFU and UBC. These people tell you harm reduction by enabling works . . . if it works so well then how come the number of fatal overdoses continued to rise every year and the number of addicts . . . they kill them off and more are lined up because they have all the drug paraphernalia they need and all the soup kitchens and groups running around to feed them and clothe them so they can spend all their social services money on drugs and when that runs out they commit crimes to pay for their addictions or sell their bodies.
I have watched people die after only been on the streets in this city for 7 months and many more in just 3 years!!!
We are supporting them in a slow and painful life of hell before they die!!
NO . . . we have a mobile site that is effective and works, as long as illegal tent operators are not telling addicts not to use it, but go to the tent instead!
Guaranteed these people have a long list of people, many not from this city, writing in to support this . . . If you do not write in to stop it . . . then prepare to poor out millions more of your tax dollars . . . the SCS costs will all the new services we had to bring in has been close to $25 million . . . where do you want your tax dollars!!!