Accusations fly over city’s plan for overdose crisis
The first expenditure for $220,000 was directed “towards peer based initiatives addressing impacts of the overdose crisis in single room occupancy (SRO) hotels and shelters.”
The second expenditure was for another $150,000 to Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services (VFRS) to enhance health and wellness supports for first responders.
In both cases, these expenditures are supposed to be “leveraged” against a $420,000 commitment by two provincial agencies — Vancouver Coastal Health and B.C. Housing.
Coun. George Affleck raised concerns about what he saw as an “ad hoc” plan by the city.
Deputy city manager Paul Mochrie was at the podium to answer council’s questions. Here’s how he explained the city’s plan for the funding allocation.
“As we’ve mapped out in the first presentation at your last meeting, there are a number of other items that we’re looking at for funding. Our focus for the last two weeks has been on these two items, as you can imagine, and we certainly heard the direction from council at the last meeting as well around focusing on frontline support, including peer support workers, so that is an issue now that we are going to turn our attention to. So there’s been a lot of discussion going on between our social policy group and those other partners — institutions like Vancouver Coastal Health as well as nonprofits and other peer support — peoples with lived experience. The folks who are, as you noted, contributing in a really significant way to the response to this crisis. I think there are some challenging questions we would have to deal with about what the city’s role is there, but we’re certainly prepared to engage in that discussion and figure out what role the city could play that would add value, and come back with some recommendations on that. We hear that’s a priority.”
The VFRS funding is to hire a dedicated, full-time position to coordinate health and counselling support for fire fighters who might be susceptible to post-traumatic stress disorder on the job.
No one would deny that taking care of our first responders is necessary and important, but it is, at most, an indirect way to respond to the struggles posed by the flows of illicit opioids on the streets.
Is the city’s plan ad hoc? Readers can decide for themselves based on the remarks by the deputy city manager.
Given the devastation caused by the opioid crisis, however, council’s histrionics accompanying this vote are nothing less than appalling.
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Originally published by Vancouver Courier