Saint John chief looks to community for how to change homelessness, drug response

The Saint John Police Force is playing the co-ordinator role to find a solution for the city's persistent drug, mental health and homelessness challenges.

In a news release, Chief Robert Bruce said the force is creating six committees, each with representatives from harm-reduction groups, the city, the police and the province, to find where the system is failing people.

"We feel, as group, that because all these issues intersect at some point, we need to look at a more co-ordinated, integrated, collaborative way of addressing them," he is quoted as saying in the news release.

Bruce previously said being addicted to drugs isn't a crime, and arresting people who use illegal drugs won't help. He said the goal of the new community action group he's created is in part to address increasing overdose deaths.

The group will have six subcommittees, the release said, and each will deal with one of the following issues: Homelessness, substance use, youth issues, mental health, quick reaction teams, and discharge planning. 

The release does not say exactly whose responsibility it will be to implement the committees' recommendations, but Bruce said the goal would be "shifting the paradigm on how we address these important social issues."

Julie Dingwell with Avenue B Harms Reduction, which is part of the project, said there's been a change in how the system views people who find themselves in trouble with the law.

"We recognize we can't police their way out of this," she said."The war on drugs is really a war against the people that are hurting the most among us.

"I think that the chief was wise to recognize that if he brings us all together and we try to find some common solutions, that we may be able to help more people."

The committees will include people who work on the ground with the province's child protection services,  provincial correctional services, women's emergency shelters and Horizon Health Network to name a few.

But more people are needed.

In the news release, Bruce said the committees are still looking for more members "who can offer specific insight, expertise, or a kind and willing heart."

Dingwell said ideally, the committees will include people who have lived in homelessness or the youth foster care system, for example.

She said her organization has been part of previous committees struck by police, such as the sex trade action committee started in 2003.

But she said an all-encompassing effort like the new community action group could help make a difference for people who are over-represented in the justice system such as young people who grew up in foster care, or people with undiagnosed mental health problems.

"There's no magic wand and there's no one person can do all of that," she said.