New Westminster will be launching a pilot project early this year to help address three crises impacting the community: homelessness, mental health, and substance use.
At its Oct. 30 meeting, council approved a two-year pilot project and strategy aimed at addressing the overlapping crises of homelessness, mental health and substance use.
“The city recognizes that existing organizational responses to these crises are not working,” said a report to council.
Lisa Spitale, the city’s chief administrative office, said the new organizational approach proposed in the pilot project would help the city deal with the human suffering of the three crises.
“These crises are complex and interrelated, and all fall under the jurisdiction of senior levels of government,” she told council. “In addition to the human suffering, these crises are straining city resources, impacting staff health and safety, and contributing to the many complaints from the community.”
When unveiling the plan, Spitale said staff would provide council with an update on the pilot project in January, with the goal of launching it in February.
The pilot project will focus on increasing immediate supports – and transitioning responsibility to senior levels of government.
“We are aiming to work ourselves out of a job,” said Lisa Leblanc, the city’s director of engineering. “The aim is to transition responsibility for funding the crisis response team and responding to the three crises to the senior levels of government to whom this jurisdiction belongs.”
Leblanc said the pilot project aims to provide a people-centred approach to dealing with the three crises and to allow the city to be proactive and responsive to the issues.
“It's been very challenging in the last few years. We have been reacting, we have been responding to this like the crisis that it is, but that's not a sustainable approach,” she said. “We've diverted resources from other core services in the city, and it's not a sustainable or resilient approach. So we're shifting from a crisis management approach to a more strategic, resilient and sustained response.”
Leblanc said the city’s advocacy and policy specialists have been drawn into the “every day, on-the-street response” which isn’t sustainable and takes away their ability to work on more strategic items.
According to the city, the goals of the pilot project include: enhanced relationships with provincial bodies that have primary responsibility for addressing the three crises; and the realization of a 24/7 shelter with 50 to 60 beds, a health connect and resource centre to address the needs of people who are unsheltered, and a supported housing development with 50 to 60 units. To accomplish these goals, the city will work to establish memorandums of understanding with BC Housing, the Fraser Health Authority, the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, and the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.
What’s the plan?
City of New Westminster staff surveyed other municipalities about their responses to the crises and conducted an “Internet scan” to see what’s being done in other jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. Staff also consulted with groups addressing these crises, including provincial and federal ministries, Fraser Health, the New Westminster Homelessness Coalition Society, the Peer Assisted Care Team, the Integrated Homelessness Action Response Team and the Substance Use Services Access Team.
Based on this work, staff found some “promising practices” related to the creation of an organizational structure that could more effectively address the three crises. These include:
- Taking a compassionate, people-centred approach that preserves the dignity of people being served and protects them from further harm.
- Shifting from a crisis management approach to a longer-term strategic planning approaching.
- Separating day-to-day operations and response from policy development and advocacy, while ensuring ongoing communications between these functions.
- Exploring preventative measures to homelessness, mental health and substance use.
- Communicating, coordinating and collaborating with other levels of government and faith-based and non-profit organizations.
- Proactively addressing community concerns and impacts related to these three crises.
Having researched what other municipalities are doing to address these crises, City of New Westminster staff proposed a two-year pilot project and implementation strategy. It includes the formation of three inter-departmental teams that will focus on addressing the three crises.
Three teams
- Crisis response team: Consisting of new and existing staff, this new team will be responsible for: addressing community requests and complaints; providing support to people who are experiencing homelessness, mental health and substance use issues; and coordinating, responding and providing referrals to provincial teams.
- Operations support team: This staff team will support the crises response team. Comprised of staff from engineering operations, fire and rescue, human resources, integrated services, parks and recreation and police services, this team will continue to perform core service duties similar to what they do today and will support the crises response team by providing assistance with clean-up and disposal of bio-hazardous waste, abandoned encampments and discarded belongings.
- Policy development and advocacy team: This staff team will lobby senior levels of government for the additional funding, resources and supports required to address the needs and issues associated with all three crises.
Other components
In addition to three staff teams, the city is planning to form two working groups – one informing implementation of the pilot project and another that will support advocacy efforts with senior levels of government.
- Implementation working group: Representatives from the three teams, Indigenous organizations, groups and organizations addressing the three crises, and people with lived and living experience will meet five times a year and on an as-needed basis to guide implementation of the pilot project.
- Advocacy support working group: This group, including business and resident representation, will meet three or four times per year and on an as-needed basis. It will be focused on assisting and supporting advocacy related to the three crises.
As part of the pilot project, city staff are working with BC Housing, the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction, Fraser Health, and the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction to enter into memorandums of understanding in support of the crises response and advocacy actions.
Brad Davie, the city’s deputy fire chief, said advocacy efforts will focus on obtaining 50 to 60 24/7 shelter beds, 50 to 60 supportive housing unit beds and 10 to 20 complex care beds in New Westminster. He said the city also hopes to establish a health connect and resource centre, which would be a “hub” that provides a variety of services.
How much will it cost?
When city council approved the two-year pilot project in October, it also directed staff to forward the funding request to the 2024 budget deliberation process.
“This is a $770,000 ask, and we do not make it lightly,” Spitale said. “We admit it's a large ask. But we come to you in good faith, with our best recommendation of what we think it will take to conduct this two-year pilot project appropriately.”
A Dec. 4 staff memo to council outlined costs related to the two-year pilot project, including staffing and equipment costs. These include: manager of crises response team ($105,000); an encampment safety officer ($80,000); two non-clinical outreach workers ($170,000 per year); a homelessness services coordinator ($75,000 per year); homelessness planning analyst ($70,000 per year); and Indigenous consultant to support engagement ($85,000 per year).
The city is seeking $585,000 in provincial funding, in both 2024 and 2025, to fund several items included in the project
The memo notes that the city would directly fund some items in the plan, including $85,000 for a livability supervisor (which is not a new staffing request, but a reallocation of an existing vacant staff position).
The city would also fund $185,000 per year for the operations support team and policy development and advocacy team: $75,000 for a half-time, one-year secondment for a deputy fire chief; $30,000 annually for communications support for two years; $15,000 annually for two years for human resources support; $35,000 annually for data analyst support; and $30,000 annually for equipment, supplies, materials and contracted services.
What does council say?
Council voted 5-2 in favour of supporting the pilot project, with Mayor Patrick Johnstone and councillors Ruby Campbell, Tasha Henderson, Jaimie McEvoy and Nadine Nakagawa voting in support. New West Progressive councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas opposed the plan.
Nakagawa said the city obviously wants senior levels of government to do more to address these issues, but people are sleeping on the streets and dying of a poisoned drug supply crisis now.
“I think that squabbling about jurisdiction right now, when people are suffering – and that's including all members of our community, that's the business community, that is staff who are trying to help – I think we need to do everything we can,” she said.
McEvoy recalled coming to New Westminster as a homeless teenager and feeling a profound sense of having been abandoned by society.
“The city deals with these issues anyway,” he added. “The planning department deals with homelessness. Our fire department responds to the medical calls regarding addiction. Some of our engineering employees have dealt with overdoses when they're doing outside work. … Having an approach that is deliberately coordinated, compassionate, practical, and, I think, hopeful, is really a better way to do it.”
Fontaine said he understands and appreciates the challenges faced by frontline city staff. He said the report to council read a bit like a “call for help” from staff.
“I don't want to vote just for something. I do want to vote for the right thing. And I don't fundamentally believe that this approach – and that this package of $700,000 in funding will necessarily produce the right results in two years,” he said. “And as a result, I'm unable to just support it. It does not mean that I don't have compassion; it doesn't mean that Councillor Minhas doesn't have compassion. It means that we are challenging what's being brought before us to make sure that senior orders of government are not taken off the hook, and that we are investing our limited resources in the best way that we can to deliver positive outcomes.”
While the city hopes to recoup some of the costs of the pilot project from senior levels of government, Fontaine isn’t convinced that will occur. Rather than supporting a city that has put money on the table to address these crises, he fears senior governments would move on to other cities that haven’t taken action.
Campbell said businesses and residents have reached out to council members about the need to respond to the three crises. She doesn’t believe it’s conducive for staff to continue to work in “crisis mode” and welcomes a “proactive approach.”
“I'm especially pleased to hear that there's recognition that day-to-day operations will continue and have to continue. We cannot continue to ask staff to respond to three crises off the side of their desk; it's just not doable,” she said. “I will be supporting this investment, I call it investment because we know if we don't do this, now it's going to be tenfold. Right? And the way that we are going, even a year from now, it could be 10 times the amount.”
Henderson said a lot of staff resources are already dealing with these files but a better approach is needed. She said what’s being proposed is a “thoughtful, intentional and collaborative, an all- hands-on deck kind of thing.”
Henderson agrees that responsibility for this work should be transferred to provincial teams, whether it's the Ministry of Housing, Fraser Health, or whomever.
“But that's not an immediate solution. I believe we need to act,” she said. “It goes without saying that anyone experiencing one of these crises is feeling the impact. Also, the whole community is feeling the impact, and they are asking – and sometimes demanding – for us to shift our response and to take what they see as clear action.”
Minhas said it “wears thin” when businesses and residents who have suffered because of these issues are portrayed as lacking compassion.
“If you're trying the same thing over and over again, and we've talked about it, it's wasting time and we are wasting money. To me, that doesn't make sense,” he said. “If I am going to support something, it has to make real sense. If not, it's not worth doing it. We need to be creative.”
McEvoy said cities pressure senior levels of government by taking action, not by doing nothing.
“These problems won't be resolved if we don't attempt to resolve them,” he said.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone said community partners are coordinating with the city on various initiatives, and the provincial and federal governments have provided funding for some initiatives, but the city believes there’s a need for a more coordinated approach. He’s confident there will be “positive outcomes” from the pilot project.
“I think it's important that we do this,” he said. “I don't think we can dither on this. The quicker we can get these supports activated, I think the better.”
Amendment approved
While discussing the pilot project, Fontaine said he’d like to know what targets would be used to gauge the pilot project’s success, such the number of people sleeping on the street, accessing housing and getting into drug treatment programs.
Fontaine put forward amendments related to the issue, which council approved unanimously:
- That staff report back regarding an identified set of targets and intended outcomes as they pertain to the two-year organizational pilot project and implementation strategy.
- That staff report back on a quarterly basis regarding how much funding has been secured from federal and provincial governments to offset the costs of this pilot project.
Fontaine said it’s critical that there be clear outcomes attached to the initiative so the city can measure whether or not it’s been a success, as opposed to just measuring the level of activities.
Some statistics
A Nov. 20, 2023 memo to city council regarding the pilot project included some statistics related to the homelessness crisis in New Westminster:
- The city’s housing needs report from June 2021 identified a need for 358 supportive housing units between 2021 and 2031. To date, 52 units have been approved and funded – accounting for 14.5 per cent of the units needed in New West.
- The March 2023 point-in-time homeless count (considered an undercount) found there were 57 unsheltered and 146 sheltered homeless people in New Westminster. That was a 65 per cent increase from the 2020 count.
- The homeless count found there was a significant over-representation of Indigenous people in the unsheltered homeless population (43 per cent), compared to the Indigenous sheltered population (12 per cent) and to the city’s overall Indigenous population (3.1 per cent).
- The March 2023 homeless count identified that 61 per cent of unsheltered and 33 per cent of sheltered people in New Westminster self-reported a mental health issues.
- In the March 2023 homeless count, 78 per cent of unsheltered and 25 per cent of sheltered homeless people self-reported some form of addiction.
