Should PG follow Kamloops’ lead on addressing downtown social issues?

It’s the million-dollar question nobody has a concrete solution for. How to clean up the social issues plaguing downtown Prince George?

Over the past several years, the City has made several attempts to try and get ahead of open drug use, homeless encampments, mental health issues, and other forms of crime, but with very limited success.

Whether it’s integrated housing, a controversial Safe Streets Bylaw, or the high-priced Select Committee for a Safe, Clean, and Inclusive Downtown none of the solutions seem to have made a reasonable dent into the topic.

However, maybe a more outside-the-box solution is needed.

Earlier this year, the Kamloops North Shore Business Improvement Association (BIA), Downtown Kamloops and the Kamloops and District Chamber of Commerce released the results of their first-ever integrated business survey.

The survey data shared five key areas:

1) Who Participated in the survey?
2) What are the business impacts and costs?
3) What are the business response and actions?
4) Response agency assessments?
5) Comments from the survey?

The majority of respondents were business owners located in that city who had been operating for over a decade.

Jeremy Heighton the executive director of the North Shore Business Improvement Association told MyPGNow.com that the consumer confidence issues they are seeing are similar to Prince George, and are related to social disruption.

“When we looked at the top ten issues that we hear about in the community and we ask people to rank them, nine of those ten were social disruption issues. So, this includes loitering, littering, open drug use, needles, hazardous, waste, defecation, that kind of thing.”

“So, it was quite interesting to us to look at these issues and say while criminality does have a million-dollar impact on businesses over the last four years it’s not the primary issue for business right now. The primary issue is the perception of community safety and the impacts to their business.”

Heighton mentioned the situation on the streets of Kamloops, similar to Prince George has been tied to the crippling effect of the illicit drug crisis.

As of the end of August report issued by the BC Coroners Service, Northern Health continues to have the highest drug toxicity death rate among all health authorities at 52.4.

Interior Health on the other hand, which includes Kamloops ranks third with a rating of 45.4.

When comparing both cities Kamloops has tallied 62 drug toxicity deaths so far in 2022, while PG is a little further behind at 46.

Heighton also cited pandemic impacts as well as the lack of action on prolific offenders are help causing all of these issues to hit our streets at the exact same time.

“It’s not that any one aspect of it is worse than ever before it’s just that they are all hitting together. When we look at vandalism in Chinatown, we look at issues in Gastown, and even in Prince George, Kamloops, and Kelowna we are all seeing the same issues.”

Several housing initiatives have been undertaken in Prince George over the last few years to try and get some of our most vulnerable off our streets.

Last November, occupants of the now-closed George Street encampment were moved into the Knights Inn, which is being operated by the PG Native Friendship Centre.

In addition, the 50-unit modular homes have also been completed with an estimated 45 people living in them. In a previous interview with MyPGNow.com, outgoing mayor Lyn Hall noted that the Integrated housing model with wraparound healthcare services at the old NR Motors building on 1st Avenue is slated to begin construction this year.

In Kamloops, the downtown core and the North Shore have been the hub for housing and social outreach.

However, Heighton noted these temporary sites do not bode well for the surrounding businesses within a three-block radius.

“If we know that the impact from these operations is going to be significant within a three-block radius then what are we doing about it? How are we ensuring that operators operate in a credibly efficient manner? Not just inside their doors but in the community interface.

“At the community level, we can then drive this into our bylaws side we call Community Services Officers here and we can also look at it as a BIA on how we engage street patrols and how we engage our outreach services and our crown council to deal with wilful repeat offenders?”

“What this report clearly tells us is that with a million dollars in criminal activity losses in the last year and one-point-one million in crime prevention strategies in the last year, we are doing and that’s what was really important for our members is to go back to our enforcement services and say no, hold on, we are stepping up into the fray and doing our part. It’s now up to enforcement and response agencies to determine how we work together,” said Heighton.

Regardless of which city you’re in, the theme of employee safety remains the same.

In the report, 81% of respondents noted some significant impacts on staff safety since 2018.

Heighton went as far as to say those numbers are probably eerily similar in Prince George and put the onus on the provincial government for its piecemeal response to mental health services.

“The mental health continuum has not been well funded by our province. Wrap around and complex care services have not been well thought out and so what happens is people with significant mental health issues walk up and down our streets (PG and Kamloops) screaming at people and threatening them and yet we have no mechanisms to get them into care when they won’t care for themselves.”

“So, what happens is that we have this perfect storm of issues. We have actual homeless people on our streets, these are people who can’t actually afford a home. They are homeless because of the price of housing or their rents keep going up or whatever. That’s a small proportion. We have a proportion of people on our streets that have a genuine addiction issue, however, we don’t have the capacity in the system to help heal these people. Until we get complex care sites across the province that have a robust capacity, these folks are stuck on the street with nowhere to go unless they hit bottom and voluntarily go into care.”

“We then have a lot of people with mental health issues with a lot of folks who 35 years ago, the provincial government made a policy decision to close facilities and heal these folks in the community but when you add a toxic, dark supply to a mental health crisis without any support in the mental health care system and we have an involuntary care trigger you end up with where we are at with tons of people on the street walking around who are in a crisis that is functional enough that the courts don’t want to impose undue hardship but not so functional that they don’t impact the community,” added Heighton.

He then mentioned the final group is one that consists of drug dealers and those who are taking advantage of other street people.

“What we have to do as a society, as a province, and as a nation is to decide what is our continuum. How are we getting homeless people into homes, how are we getting addicted people into care and in some cases involuntary care because a lot of them can’t care for themselves and how are we getting mental health people into treatment as well as dealing with prolific offenders where the RCMP is still stuck in catch and release.”

Heighton was emphatic that in order for the social issues to go away it will take some real leadership from newly-elected Mayor Simon Yu, the council, and the business community and social providers to step up and want to do better.

He added this could be done by advocating and lobbying at all levels of government to ensure the mechanisms and tools are put in place.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, sometimes you have to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Sometimes programming will work and sometimes it won’t be we have to be prepared to try it and to lose and to try it again.”

Another key frustration from the public is the legal system where Heighton stated there is an imbalance in the prosecutorial guidelines in BC, which says the undue hardship of an individual on the street trumps the community’s rights to safety and security.

He added cities like Kamloops and PG are pushing the province to help clearly define what that line is.

“What’s the line? Should there be five incidents with the RCMP, in which case this person isn’t involuntarily detained in their interest and the communities, or do we just let it go and have the revolving door of non-compliance and lack of involuntary care that is perpetuating this street cycle?”

Many people who commented on the Impacts Findings Report stated the low-barrier and current social housing strategy in Kamloops has been a massive failure citing no collaboration with residents or businesses as well as little to no follow-through on mitigation measures to deal with the social issues at hand.

Heighton is torn on this topic stating the best way forward is a tiered-housing plan.

“It was critical in a time where needed people off the streets and into a primary care model. The challenge we have now is that we don’t think that model has evolved quickly enough to address the new realities of people living rough on our streets. What we have actually done is design a housing metric where the first level is low-barrier, maybe its shelter beds, and people can get in and out of the cold. You need enough robustness there to get everybody off the street.”

“Then you need a next level where people are starting on that healing journey and that housing is different than the sheltered housing. The problem is in shelter housing we have Bill and Bob living next door to each other, Bill is an active user and Bob is trying to get clean but Bill’s dealer is dropping by 12 times a day what is Bog going to do? He’s trying to get out of the situation. You need different housing for those Bobs who are trying to lift themselves out. Then at the end of it, your goal would be to release people back into the community who are productive for themselves, for the community who are healed who then have the skills and knowledge to really function positively.”

Lastly, many respondents in the survey are of the view that re-opening the Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam – better known as Essendale to help deal with a lot of the social issues.

Riverview first opened on April 1st, 1913, and was closed by the province in the spring of 2012.

Heighton stated the former 800-bed hospital would at the very least give those who are down on their luck some of the involuntary care they need.

“What we do believe is that there is a role for involuntary care in this province. There does need to be a facility where there are healthy outcomes for the clients and the community but ultimately these people who are unable to care for themselves, these prolific addicts who can’t care for themselves need something.”

“We in the community can’t help them. We need an actual system for those individuals where we say your best life is not living behind a dumpster at minus thirty. Your best life is having a room with a care regime, with nurses, with appropriate care mechanisms, and hopefully one day you can get yourself out of that system. But, we have to think differently, we have to think with both the lens of accountability but also with compassion.”

A link to the findings report can be found here.