Community steps up for Prairie Harm Reduction drug consumption site after Sask. gov't refuses
Community support staggering, but provincial funding still needed: executive director
Saskatchewan's government chose not to support Saskatoon's supervised consumption site, so community members are stepping up to fill in that gap.
Prairie Harm Reduction's supervised consumption site, which allows people to use drugs with safe instruments and in the presence of a paramedic in case the supply is contaminated, was left out of the recent provincial budget.
PHR also serves community members living with addiction, housing or mental health challenges.
"I don't think it's too late for them to do the right thing," executive director Jason Mercredi said. "We need provincial funding.The province knows they should be funding us. Their own internal documents show that we save the money. We're saving lives."
The province has faced unprecedented rates of drug-related deaths and overdoses over the past two years.
PHR asked for $1.3 million to run a 24/7 consumption site, as well as smaller increments of money to help it run at some capacity. The government declined.
Mercredi says they need stable government funding, but he is grateful for the community support in the interim. Without the support, he says, the fate of the supervised consumption site was unclear.
"The amount of donations that have come in has been staggering," he said. "It's like this crazy fundraising train."
Community unwilling to let others die
The fundraising efforts in the community include people selling tulips, real estate, artwork, Pilates classes, cocktails, hydroflasks, raffle tickets, honey, doughnuts, ice cream, rink burgers. Others are simply putting money forward. Hundreds of people have written advocacy letters to the government. Mercredi says at least 250 individuals have donated and almost 50 businesses have launched fundraisers, raising thousands of dollars.
Saskatoon's community owned Broadway Theatre raised $10,049 with popcorn.
"While we are thrilled to have raised over $10K for Prairie Harm reduction in a week – on popcorn – it is vital for people to take the next step and ensure that elected officials know they want this agency to receive stable funding," theatre director Kirby Wirchenko said.
Rachel Engler-Stringer says community members, including her spouse who is fundraising, are of the same opinion: [This] should not be funded by the community, this should not be funded by individuals — it should be funding that falls under the purview of the Ministry of Health, but we cannot allow more people to die."
The associate professor of community health and epidemiology says provincial governments have been offloading health and social services to community-based organizations, such as food banks, since the early 1990s.
Government decided to cut costs by reducing health and social supports, she says, adding stable funding was replaced by piecemeal dollars for specific programs or grants. She says the grants are often not enough to run life-saving programs, let alone pay staff decent wages.
Organizations are working with the most vulnerable populations living with poverty, homelessness and often intergenerational trauma, she says.
"We're talking about marginalized communities, communities that are often made invisible in our society. They're not the people who are voting. They're not people who are in the kinds of jobs that would make them big hitters when it comes to taxpayers," she said. "They don't have a voice in the way that affluent communities do."
Engler-Stringer says services such as the supervised consumption site are proven to reduce poor health outcomes and connect people with supports.
"There is no way of justifying that as not being clearly health related service," she said.
Personal stories emerge
People such as Josh Forrest are sharing their personal stories to help people understand the need for the site.
Forrest is doing a practicum at Prairie Harm Reduction via the mental health and wellness course at Saskatchewan Indigenous Institute of Technologies. But, as he jokes, he also spent years studying on the frontlines as he grappled with his own addiction.
During his addiction, he saw multiple friends die. Each of them had been using alone — something that wouldn't happen at a supervised consumption site.
He was exposed to opiates and anesthetic at a young age through surgeries. Then, in his mid-20s, he was prescribed opioids after oral surgery to remove wisdome teeth. Forrest sank into fentanyl addiction.
"The drug can feel like food and without it you're not functioning," he said. "Once you're hooked on something like that the feeling is not the same as when you start. It more so becomes a baseline and you're just trying to feel alright and trying not to feel sick.
He says that just two years ago he could have been a client at PHR, and wants people to understand how important it is for people living with addiction to receive support without judgment as is offered at PHR.
"People who are using substances are just trying to cope with … physical pain, emotional pain, whatever it is, but they're just trying to feel better."
Mercredi says his time spent on fundraising initiatives would be better used trying to connect people with resources and addressing the issues surrounding the drug crisis: trauma, HIV, hepatitis C, homelessness and unemployment.
"All the energy we're putting into fundraising — we could have been putting it into service delivery or other initiatives and more innovation," he said.
Merchandise line an ode to provincial strategy
On Thursday, PHR released its latest merchandise line to raise money.
Several items sold out within hours to people in Canada and Europe. The line's theme was "Dress Accordingly," which Mecredi says is a nod to the provincial government's current addictions strategy.
"The provincial government's signalled pretty loud and clear that we're not going to be taking any huge steps forward this year in terms of stopping the overdose deaths," Mercredi said. "The province seems to be still stuck in the late '80s, early '90s — kind of 'just say no,' 'get people sobered up' approach," he said.
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Everett Hindley said the provincial government chose to direct money toward broad programs across the province as it worked with "limited dollars." The province put one per cent of its 2021-22 Ministry of Health budget toward addictions.
The government has celebrated the expansion of addictions treatment beds, but Mercredi says this ignores a key problem that supervised consumption sites address.
"In order to get people into treatment centres, we have to keep them alive, and that's where government funding for a program like ours would make the world the difference."
Mercredi says Prairie Harm Reduction plans to keep the pressure on the province for secure funding. It will release the total amount raised at the end of the month, and he's hopeful that there will be enough there so they can expand hours instead of shut down.