With toxic street drugs such as fentanyl killing four British Columbians a day, much of the response has focused on overdose treatments with naloxone, and supervised injection sites.
Yet public-health staff have concluded that emergency interventions such as these will not stop the epidemic. If the supply of these drugs cannot be halted — and no war on drugs has ever been won — the only option is to prevent the downward slide that leads to street-drug addiction.
Many of the victims are middle-age men and women who have fought a lifelong struggle against such challenges as alcoholism, mental illness, the lasting effects of childhood abuse and more.
Simple tasks such as cooking a meal, washing clothes, getting a haircut or holding down a job can overwhelm them. They live among us, in street doorways and city parks, but, shamefully, too often they are not part of us. Many die alone.
Community groups are trying to turn this tide. Because financial donations are desperately needed, we want to give readers a sense of the challenge involved. We’ll focus on two agencies, Our Place Society and the PHS Community Services Society, but many others provide equally vital services.
Our Place, on Pandora Avenue, offers free housing for 135 individuals making the transition from street living to a more permanent lifestyle. Some stay as long as two years. There is also overnight accommodation for 60. The costs are paid jointly by B.C. Housing and Island Health.
In addition, the society provides 1,800 free meals a day, hot showers, free clothing — including 100 pairs of socks a day — skill training, medical care, counselling and employment referrals. These services are made possible by 37,000 hours of volunteer support each year and help from local businesses.
PHS offers housing for about 240 individuals at its Johnson Street and Douglas Street centres. The Johnson Street facility was opened to provide accommodation for homeless campers who set up a tent city next to the provincial courthouse building. Many still live at the facility.
Some of the accommodation is longer term, some short term for individuals in crisis. About 560 meals a day are served. The supervised consumption site at the Johnson Street facility averages 1,000 visits a month, and no deaths have occurred.
Residents take part in providing services, which helps them to begin regaining control of their lives. Among those services, two cleanup teams work seven days a week picking up trash and discarded harm-reduction supplies (such as naloxone kits).
These contributions greatly reduce costs and also create bonds among residents, PHS staff and the broader community.
Managers at both societies make the same basic point: While the task of providing such a wide array of services is enormous, the principal difficulty lies in gaining the trust of people who haven’t previously been given many reasons to trust.
In last Tuesday’s throne speech, the province committed to creating cheaper housing. No doubt that is needed.
However, the hard truth is that the majority of overdose victims are too scarred, physically and psychologically, to take up such accommodation, even if it were available. Nor could they afford it.
The real counterattack must begin at street level. And magnificent as the efforts of agencies such as Our Place and PHS are, they are not enough. By some estimates, hundreds of individuals in Greater Victoria need help and cannot find it.
This a challenge we all must face. More donations are needed, and more volunteers are required. But most important, we have to see homelessness and drug addiction for what they are: Symptoms of damaged lives that can be repaired only if the entire community plays a part.
