“It’s a community issue”: Resident concerns brought to City Hall

“I’m having groups come to me, different business groups,” Clugston said. “North Railway, downtown or CCDA. Even individual business owners and citizens just walking on the street saying ‘what is going on with this?’”

It’s an issue the Medicine Hat Coalition on Supervised Consumption is working to address with help from HIV Community Link.

“We really need to understand that this isn’t just an issue for a certain demographic,” said clinical lead Corey Ranger. “It’s a community issue.”

Together they’re in the process of finding a space suitable for a safe consumption site in the city.

“We don’t condone drug use,” said executive director Leslie Hill. “We just accept that it’s a fact and we support people to be safer in the behaviours that they’re engaging in.”

Hill said they’ve narrowed down the location to downtown or North Railway, both which are areas where drug use is known to happen.

“We’ve spoken to businesses who are experiencing it in their washrooms,” she said. “We find needles in parks and that type of thing. We have an outreach team that goes and does clean up in the parks.”

Clugston said the rumours about what a facility like this could bring to the city have been swirling.

“You’re hearing just a full gamut,” he said. “All of a sudden, it’s a mecca for drug users and they’re destroying businesses and there’s more needles everywhere on the streets, to the other side of the story, no, they’re saving lives.”

Other have brought forward their own concerns, saying they’re worried about the possible location.

“I would say if I owned a business and you were talking about locating this next door to me, I hate NIMBY-ism, but in this case, I get it,” he added.

But Hill said it wouldn’t look like anything out of the ordinary.

“In terms of what it looks like in a community, it doesn’t look like much different than any other business with people coming and going from it,” she said.

On the inside, it would provide a space to use illicit substances and a safe place to ask for help.

The group is working closely to have someone with Alberta Health Services on site to provide addictions councillors and to be able to offer testing for HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

The Medicine Hat Community Housing Society would also provide housing assessments from the location.

“In reality, these folks have experienced a wide array of discrimination, of abuse, of trauma, the residual effects of residential schools and so it’s important to realize that addiction itself and substance use isn’t necessarily a personal choice,” Ranger said. “It’s a multi-factorial complex.”

Clugston said he’s curious to see how it all works and is planning on visiting the facility in Lethbridge to better understand why one might be needed here.

“It’s always best to just see first-hand for yourself, because I mean, you can read and you can hear, but if you go look for yourself, you’ll see, oh there’s needles everywhere or there’s a line to get in,” he said.

“We really need to make sure we can support people in the here and now so that we can keep them alive for one more day, so that when they do want to seek out those services, we can strike while the iron is hot and get them there,” Ranger added.

Clugston adds the process to open a facility like this isn’t easy and said councillors will have a vote once more of the paperwork is in order.

“This is a fairly long process,” he said. “They’re dealing with all three levels of government. Federal, because there’s criminal statute against using, doing this. So they have to get federal approval, provincial and then of course work with the municipality as well. It’s not going to pop up tomorrow.”

by Ashley Wiebe

“It’s a community issue”: Resident concerns brought to City Hall

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