The province says it’s time to change the way it's handling addiction and homelessness.
Terry Yung, B.C. minister of state for community safety and integrated services, conveyed that message while touring Vancouver Island cities last week, and met with Nanaimo-Gabriola MLA Sheila Malcolmson and Nanaimo-Lantzville MLA George Anderson on Friday, Feb. 7.
Yung heard about challenges dealing with homelessness, addiction, crime and other social disorder, but also listened to ideas from businesses, neighbourhood associations and local government officials on ways to help house and treat people living on the streets and lower crime.
The minister of state has dealt with the impacts of addiction and mental health challenges as a 30-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department, when he worked a beat in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He said addressing addictions mental health and housing requires an approach that combines integrated services.
“We cannot arrest our way out of poverty or people being homeless or mental health and drug addiction,” he said.
Yung said it's important to hear about the unique challenges faced by individual cities and try to "bring balance back to the community." He said there there won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution and audits need to be conducted to understand each community needs.
“Because the status quo is not working and we’ve got to do a lot better to make sure that people in Nanaimo feel safe to go about their business and that Nanaimo is a safe place to work, live and play,” Yung said.
Steps that can be taken to curb street disorder include rebate programs for businesses to help cover costs of broken windows and other property damage by vandalism, graffiti removal and maintenance of places where unhoused people congregate or camp. Nanaimo has had those kinds of programs operating for several years.
“I’m here to listen to all the good ideas from people of Nanaimo and take it back to Victoria to look at how to incorporate those ideas into action … We can’t just sit here and talk about it,” he said. “During the [election] campaign, loud and clear, people in my riding said we’re tired of the status quo, we’re tired of you looking into it, listening, thinking about it. The time for action is now.”
Working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Yung it was heartbreaking to see lives lost and hopes dashed to addiction, and he said the way homelessness and addiction has been dealt with isn’t fair to the people experiencing it or to first responders.
“Nobody deserves what happens to them on the streets … If you’re homeless you’re 19 times, or more, likely to be a victim of crime because nobody’s going to look after you,” he said.
Multiple ministries must be co-ordinated more effectively to get people housed, safe, in treatment programs and to protect communities by targeting repeat violent offenders “who aren’t ill, but they just want to victimize people,” Yung said, adding that those offenders shouldn't be back out onto the streets two hours after being arrested.
He said achieving those goals won’t happen overnight, but said communities aren’t prepared to wait another two years to see results, either. The measure of success of community programs will have to be evidence-based to see which approaches provide the best return on investment. In Gastown, 45 days after increasing the presence of police and security teams on the ground and opening a community policing centre, violence in that area dropped 70 per cent.
The approach in Gastown is showing a good return on investment because it’s governed by an advisory council with representation from businesses and residents, but that same approach won’t necessarily work in other communities with different requirements.
“Even here in Nanaimo, depending on where you are in Nanaimo, you have different challenges and needs,” he said.
Malcolmson said she and her colleagues heard from stakeholders. Business operators, she said, want to have easier access to city resources to quickly get help for people they see in crisis.
“We also heard the vandalism grants that we provided to help businesses repair … were under-subscribed, but also hard to access, especially outside municipal boundaries,” Malcolmson said.
Anderson said businesses are also saying they want to come to the table and partner with the provincial government.
“That’s something that the premier has said, that he wants to restart this relationship with the business community and make sure that we’re providing an economy and also homes for people that they feel safe and that they can have a vibrant, prosperous future in,” Anderson said.
Kevan Shaw, vice-president of the Nanaimo Area Public Safety Association, said after meeting with Yung, he was happy to hear government taking a fresh approach to the problems.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and that’s what this government has been doing … so I see a lot of hope here that they are changing now…" Shaw said. "They’re open to listening, finally, and they’re not keeping us at a distance going, 'you don’t know what your talking about' … They know there’s a public outcry. Things have to change."
