Veteran Saskatoon police officer shares front-line look at downtown homelessness, addiction crisis
Sgt. Chris Harris advocates for involuntary treatment model
"Oh s--t."
At the mention of an overdose just metres away, Saskatoon Police Service Sgt. Chris Harris's demeanour — and language — shifted from sessional lecturer to first responder in a snap.
A man with dark hair and a zippered, grey hoodie was lying motionless on the concrete floor just inside what appeared to be a service door on the outside of Midtown Plaza.
Harris kneeled beside him and, with the composure of a carpenter running another board over his table saw, took the necessary steps to ensure the man lived.
Harris, a 19-year veteran of the police force, agreed to take CBC through Saskatoon's downtown for a tour of an area he has spent the past four years patrolling as part of the bike unit, also known as the community response unit.
In that role, he mostly patrols the downtown area. He often sees people, as he said, in the worst days of their lives.
Downtown is part of the city's core area that's facing a drug crisis. It reached an apex in recent months with a shocking number of overdoses that has worn the city's response mechanisms to a nub.
Prairie Harm Reduction, which houses the city's sole supervised consumption site, announced in the second last week of March it would be closing for the remainder of the month to relieve the strain on stressed employees. Two of the Saskatoon Public Library's locations, where staff were said to routinely deal with people using or selling drugs in the past, followed suit shortly after by temporarily closing as well.
The veteran police officer was explaining his perspective on issues of homelessness and addiction in the core when a man, standing on the south side of Midtown Plaza just off 20th Street East, called to him that, "a guy is OD-ing here."
It was just after 3:15 p.m. CST on a Friday afternoon.
Harris sprayed naloxone into the man's nose and called him by name — Harris was familiar with the man — while lightly shaking him. Then he spoke some commands into his radio.
Every now and then, the man made a sound that resembled a deep snore. Other than that, the small alcove where Harris attended to the man was quiet.
Harris said the man was breathing and had a pulse. He explained that the naloxone takes about five minutes to kick in. The man survived.
When Harris deals with someone overdosing, he's often called to the scene rather than stumbling onto it. He said this was about the fourth time in the past month that he had found someone in the middle of an overdose.
"It's definitely prevalent," he said.
He said it's worsened in recent years.
A controversial solution
Harris said people experiencing homelessness can be grouped in two categories: one is people who are homeless through general poverty, lack of affordable housing or because they've financially lost their footing; the other is people with complex needs — like addictions and mental health issues — acting as barriers to obtaining housing.
He estimated that 90 per cent or more are in the latter group. He said those nine in 10 people tell him their addictions are stopping them from finding a place to go. That's why he does not believe affordable housing projects are the answer.
Last month, Saskatoon Mayor Cynthia Block spoke at a news conference about the drug overdose crisis and referenced city council's recent approval of affordable housing units in the city.
According to city documents, the City of Saskatoon secured $41.3 million in federal funding through the federal Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF). Of that funding, city council put $26.1 million toward creating 757 new affordable housing units, including 256 units to be built on city-owned land. Those units are set to be completed by the end of 2027.
On Tuesday, she said affordable housing is inclusive of supportive and transitional housing. According to Block, about 70 per cent of the 757 affordable housing units approved by city council have supports inside them.
"It doesn't mean that every person who goes into an affordable housing unit is ready to operate that home independently," Block said.
Block said that, to her knowledge, people with concerning social behaviour are typically being taken to the complex needs facility on Idylwyld Drive.
Block said the city needs two more drop-in centres to run 24-hours a day throughout the year as a temporary fix as the city awaits new housing units.
"When people are safely housed, it changes everything," Block said.
"Do some of those folks who are in affordable housing require additional supports and health care and mental health and addiction supports? Absolutely, many of them will, but the housing is foundational to the first step in recovery."
Harris believes that's a step in the right direction, but that housing ought to be one of the last steps, after someone is more stable.
"You could build three city blocks worth of housing but if a person is so unstable because of either drug addiction or mental health issues that as soon as you put them in that house bad things are going to happen, then you obviously can't do that," Harris said.
His personal solution — he emphasized it was not necessarily the vision of the police service — would be to develop a massive, one-stop facility that holds services from medical services to psychological services.
Ideally, it would fill gaps in the recovery delivery model, like wait times.
"The rub of that is it's not voluntary, it would be mandatory. It would be, basically, forced detox," he said.
Harris said that without multiple services available — as there would be in a wraparound hub, if all of those are in a one-stop shop — people are more likely to relapse.
He knows involuntary detox is a controversial notion, but he defends it.
"They're stabilized, they're getting the attention they need — both psychologically and medically — they're being fed, they're being housed, they're safe, other people around them are safe," he said.
"I would argue that that's a much better quality of life than sleeping out, digging through dumpsters, not knowing where your next meal is coming from, at risk of either being robbed, beat up."
Some provinces embrace forced detox, experts push back
Alberta introduced a bill on Tuesday to force people with severe substance addictions into involuntary treatment.
Saskatchewan has considered doing the same.
The act is controversial, with experts pushing back against it.
Shirley Isbister, president of Central Urban Métis Federation Inc. (CUMFI), said there are gaps in recovery services, but does not believe forced detox or treatment is the answer.
"I don't think that's even a human right, to force someone into treatment," she said.
"I believe that when people are ready then we need to have the spaces available."
Isbister said there simply needs to be more homes for people. For addictions, it's about meeting people's needs where they are at.
She said CUMFI is looking at building about 20 tiny homes that include supports to house people who do not want to go to treatment, keeping them off the street.
The organization does have supported living apartment units as part of a transitional program for men in addictions recovery and has had a lot of success with it, she said.
Isbister believes there need to be specific homes in Saskatoon for people with addictions.
In an interview in March, Barbara Fornssler told CBC that people may temporarily stop using substances if they're forced to quit, but it won't last.
She is an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan's school of public health whose research focuses on substance use and harm reduction.
"When the opportunity becomes available again they will take it, because we haven't addressed those underlying drivers of substance abuse," Fornssler said.
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With files from The Morning Edition