I was in Nanaimo for a three-day conference last week. It was not the content of the conference that moved me when I was there, it was the content of the city. Downtown in every nook and cranny, wherever you looked, you saw the horrible effects of opioids and homelessness. Most, if not all, had that familiar contorted body, the “fentanyl fold.”
A guy bent over pushing a shopping cart full of random objects, screaming at no one in particular. Another yelling, aiming a guitar menacingly as if it was a rocket launcher at some unseen threat. Two bundled individuals, huddled on the pavement, awkwardly trying to feed each other spoons of ice cream. A young woman with sores on her face, sitting on the sidewalk, legs twitching, staring vacantly, dead eyed. How did we get here?
The following evening, I wandered around downtown trying to find a place to eat. The smell of urine permeated the air. Many places were closed or boarded up. Corner after corner, personal encampments at entrances to buildings, parking lots, and alleys. It was like a game of not-so hidden object. And then the ones who continually push their shopping carts throughout the night, searching for a place to feel safe and sound. Which, sadly, they may never find.
Eventually, I found an Indian restaurant. It had a makeshift wood front door, with a sign warning us to open and close carefully. The daughter of the owner said the restaurant had been broken into a week earlier, and cash, a stereo and speakers were stolen. Regular break-ins and thefts are happening so often that more and more businesses are moving away or closing down. Nearby residents are having their cars and garages broken into. People don’t feel safe on the streets.
According to StatsCan, Nanaimo was pegged as Canada’s sixth-worst municipality for crime. To date, the city has lost 68 residents to drug-related deaths, 5% of all opioid deaths in BC, despite being just 2% of its population. There are 76 emergency shelter beds for 600 known homeless individuals – a whopping 200% increase from 2016.
With the imminent provincial election, it’s not surprising to hear Premier Eby announce in the middle of September, that they are working with Nanaimo to open a 60-bed navigation centre “to provide accommodation and supports for people experiencing long-term homelessness.” Just a few days later, the province also announced that Nanaimo would be getting one of six new Assertive Community Treatment teams, which will focus on “delivering community-based mental health services for people with serious challenges.”
In Vancouver, whack-a-mole mayor Ken Sim announced that he will be increasing visibility of officers to deal with the homelessness. Sim says more focused attention will be brought to the downtown Eastside using several “police resources and tactics.” He’s confident the added police presence will address chronic shoplifters and bring relief and security to the area. My spidey sense says not. Patrolling cops in armoured body wear and helmets will not provide comfort and joy. More like agitation and fear, which will further exacerbate already unbalanced, vulnerable human beings.
This is an express lane to incarceration not streamlined access to humane treatment. Like every city in North America, we are divided on how to combat the fentanyl crisis. Some want the streets swept clean, others favour a more compassionate, health-based approach. Punishment and retribution versus compassion and hope.
It is this population, those with severe addictions and mental health issues that often don’t receive the help they need from community support systems. Either the services don’t exist in an official capacity, are chronically underfunded, or in the words of downtown Eastside psychiatrist Dr. Bill MacEwan, the people themselves are viewed as “too difficult” or “too unsavoury” to deal with.
On the election campaign, both the provincial Conservatives and the NDP have voiced their full approval for the controversial involuntary care under the Mental Health Act. To address this, the government is creating more than 400 mental-health bed facilities “with more to come.” Meanwhile, Conservative Leader John Rustad accused Eby for being inconsistent and not acting on this issue sooner.
Green Leader Sonia Furstenau accused Eby of following “John Rustad off every reactionary cliff” and said she was concerned about an over-reliance on involuntary care. “Where are the investments in prevention and addressing the root causes of what we’re seeing in our communities? There’s also no focus on long-term, community-based care after discharge,” she said.
Taking people off the streets and institutionalizing them against their will, is complicated, legally, morally and practically. We should be investing in better voluntary mental health support services which help maintain peoples’ dignity and rights. With drug addictions, there is little evidence that compulsory treatment is effective and some evidence that it could even be harmful.
As one disillusioned healthcare worker said: “If the ultimate goal of forced treatment is reducing homelessness – and easing the moral heartbreak of witnessing ill people sleeping on the street or using drugs in the open – then lawmakers are writing the wrong prescription.”
It worked, but I would not recommend this procedure at all. However, if you do, you will need to take a 12 or 16 gauge shotgun shell, insert a knife into the top portion between the folded edges, carefully bend the flaps back, empty out the pellets, then pry out the paper wad below with the same knife, then pour the gunpowder into the wound, and light. This procedure will cauterize the area and decrease the likelihood of infection. Oh, and don’t attempt this near an open jug of kerosene. I learned that the hard way.
