Blood Tribe Health in talks over shelter takeover
By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on October 14, 2022.
The Lethbridge Shelter and Stabilization Centre located on 2 Avenue North and currently operated by Alpha House Society could be changing hands of operation in the coming months.
Alpha House is a non-profit based in Calgary that has been operating the shelter since 2019, and it released a statement Wednesday saying the Alberta Government will be transferring the funding grant for service provision of the shelter to another operator.
“We understand the decision supports a recognition that this work should be led by an Indigenous organization given the majority-Indigenous population accessing services. Alpha House supports the investment in Indigenous-led programming in the sector and we wish the Blood Tribe Department of Health every success as they move into operations in January,” said the statement found on the Alpha House website.
Naming the successor for the operation, the Blood Tribe Department of Health (BTDH) says they are ready to jump in and help the community.
“Nothing is definite on our part, but what we have been doing prior to this was discussions with the province and with city council,” said Charles Weaselhead, co-chair and board member for the BTDH. “At the time, we were comfortable enough to say, if the opportunity arose that we’d have the ability to operate and would be willing to do that. At this point in time, we are on standby, waiting for decisions that the province needs to make with regards to the future of the shelter.”
Looking to be at the ready, Weaselhead says the BTDH is already examining how it would run the shelter and what it will bring to the table.
“We have outreach teams at the BTDH and continue to build relationships with the homeless in Lethbridge. We have a good understanding of the needs that need to be taken care of, and we have a strategy,” said Weaselhead. “We would ensure that those in the most vulnerable population that need referrals to other programs and services can connect and strengthen our relationship. We are already working on implementing strategies that will help us help the people in need, and that’s the bottom line, the most important thing: do we have anything that we can offer to support the homeless people.”
With talks still ongoing, Alpha House says it will continue to run the shelter until January 2023. Though it is not official, the BTDH is ready and willing to tag in and assume responsibility for the shelter.
“At this point in time, a lot of agencies that we have been working with have begun to understand who we are at the BTDH and what we have been able to build towards capacity, and kickstarting a lot of support,” said Weaselhead.
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I wish you great success, sincerely! We have seen the shelter mismanaged where there were multiple rapes, assaults, thefts, initimidation to join gangs and to do drugs as stated by many who are on the streets. They didn’t feel safe!
It was also never to be a permanent place to live, but short term, which also has been abused.
There has to be rules, controls in place to provide a safe place for the people who need to use it.
We can build shelters 3 times the size and they would be filled from other communities shipping their problems to us, so we must be mindful of this.
The indigenous have suffered the highest losses in opioid deaths, by far, and homelessness is one of the outcomes as people use all their funds to pay for the drugs. The impact to the Blackfoot communities have been dramatic, leaving many families in mourning, losing many of their young people. This must end . . . and a reminder, as we have seen in the past few years, addiction is not just an indigenous problem . . . the tentacles of this crisis has reached into the community in Lethbridge, taking many young lives in this city! Many lives/families in this city have been impacted!
I hope and pray we come up will solutions to end this, but first we must acknowledge and realize that ‘harm reduction’ doesn’t work. If it worked, Vancouver DTES would have been able to reflect it, since they have used this theory for almost 20 years now, yet fatal overdoses, overdoses, the number of addicts, the numbers of homelessness/crime have all increased every year!
You do not have to have your masters degrees or other university degrees to know that in 20 years of employing harm reduction principles their should be tangible results . . . there are none to support it works, but plenty that show it doesn’t work.
I would expect the Blood Tribe to remove the people working at the current shelter, some who were from the Supervised Consumption Site that was closed and start fresh, with fresh new ideas to make it work!
I sincerely want to see this succeed!!