A five-month pilot program that saw a two-person team patrol the city's downtown on behalf of the bylaw services department appears on its way to becoming a permanent fixture after drawing expressions of support from city council.
Since mid-May, Denton Johnson and Adrian Hebert had worked as bylaw compliance assistants with the aim of enhancing "health, safety and security" to the downtown. Their days typically started at 7 a.m. with a sweep of the downtown looking for people camping out and getting them to clean up after themselves.
But perhaps more important in the opinion of bylaw services manager Fred Crittendon were the people skills they have brought to the job.
"We'd felt that it was just moving people along and clean up after some of the messes that were left," Crittendon said during a presentation to city council last week.
"But we found very quickly that because of these two staff peoples' experience and training, they were able to establish a rapport with some of the population downtown on our streets day in and day out."
Johnson and Hebert both have backgrounds as correctional officers and in addition to bylaw enforcement, they also received training on such topics as conflict resolution, understanding diversity and dealing with the homeless and those with mental health issues.
From mid-May to the end of August, they dealt with more than 571 incidents related to people camping out on public or private property, well up from just 72 over the same period last year. Crittendon attributed the jump to the team going out and searching for campers as opposed to bylaw services acting solely on complaints from the public.
The debris they dealt with amounted to 54 loads taken to the Foothills landfill, adding up to 3,530 kilograms. The majority consisted of soiled mattresses, bike parts, wooden pallets, clothing, general garbage, drug paraphernalia, contaminated cardboard, and Styrofoam insulation.
But there were also syringes. Over August, the team picked up over three 19-litre (five-gallon) pails worth and in addition to used needles, they found numerous unopened syringes, still in their boxes.
The count, along with a photo of a pile of needles the team had collected, drew a strong comment from Coun. Brian Skakun regarding Northern Health's needle exchange program.
"I don't think there seems to be a needle exchange anymore," he said. "They just give them out and there doesn't seem to be a lot of effort to clean them up and to have a five-gallon bucket full, I mean you've got to be having several hundred needles in there easily."
Following on Skakun's comments, Coun. Murry Krause said the numbers show a need for more affordable and supportive housing.
"It's often been said, a shelter isn't a place to live," Krause added. "And so at the end of the winter, when people have lived in a shelter all winter, they want to live anywhere else."
As for the term needle exchange, Krause said there has been talk of calling it something else.
"I don't think it has been one-for-one for a very long time. It's been a long time since that was considered the modality of delivery."
Crittendon said one of the team has left for another job but the remaining one is slated to remain on staff until the end of October. But he could be there longer. In response to a comment from Coun. Jillian Merrick, city manager Kathleen Soltis said money will be found within the city budget to keep the position on the city payroll at least until budget discussions roll around.
Mayor Lyn Hall followed up by saying "it's absolutely a lined item in our budget. There's no question that the city will have to continue to do this."
During the last round of budget talks, council approved $52,577 to cover the full costs, wages and benefits for the positions from May 1 to Sept. 1.
