Niagara Falls Review e-edition

Answers elusive for growing social problems

It’s a story told in St. Catharines, but really it’s one that is also being heard to varying degrees in nearly every municipality in Niagara and probably most cities and larger towns all across Canada.

The issue is the societal crisis of addictions, homelessness and untreated mental illness, and what to do about it. It’s a big problem that so far is being addressed through small answers, hundreds of them.

The latest group to sound the alarm over the impact of this is staff working for the City of St. Catharines.

Quite understandably, they are frustrated, demoralized and probably sometimes frightened having to deal with this problem face-first.

Perhaps they are asked to help move homeless people out of their encampment; maybe they drive the backhoe that cleans up the mess (i.e., people’s life belongings) after the camp has been cleared.

Firefighters have complained about having to protect themselves against discarded syringes and other drug paraphernalia while doing their jobs.

People who are mentally ill or using drugs — or who aren’t normally a danger but are just fed up with being rousted yet again from their encampment — can sometimes turn violent.

As St. Catharines municipal works director Darrell Smith said this week of the feedback he hears from staff: “Because of this, it is very demoralizing to the staff, and I get the comments, ‘I’m a gardener. I wasn’t hired to clean up human waste.’ ”

Put yourself in their shoes. You’d feel the same way.

By most accounts, more than two years of living in a COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this problem.

Social isolation, so many closed doors and lack of opportunity has sent drug and opioid addictions spiralling.

All that, and the stress brought on by life during COVID, has increased demand for mental health care even as those services were sometimes more difficult to access due to public health restrictions.

And job loss, rising costs and stress on individuals and families has likely contributed to making homelessness even worse.

There’s no big answer that can help, at least none that governments have been willing to invest in. Instead, it is all being addressed through programs, outreach work, volunteer efforts, adding more low-income housing a few units at a time. Governments all spend more to try to fix it, but it’s never enough. We don’t pretend to have any new answers here that would solve it, and we’re not going to lecture this person or that department for not having it fixed by yesterday.

Many good people are already investing much of their working lives and spare time helping people like these who need assistance. It’s a massive undertaking just to keep it under control, let alone solve it.

However, the personal stories related by municipal department heads to St. Catharines city council this week underscore the need to do more.

If no one should have to live the way a homeless family does — or like a person with mental illness who can’t find treatment, or like someone with addiction issues who can’t get help — then no one should have to deal with what some municipal staff are encountering during their workdays, either.

“This is a complex issue facing not only St. Catharines, but all of society, quite honestly,” chief administrative officer David Oakes told council.

“The conversation isn’t a fun one to have always because we don’t have the answers in a lot of cases, but we do have some tools that we can bring forward.”

More programs, more services, more chipping away at a problem that won’t stop growing.

For everything else that is going on in Ontario, this might be the most important issue facing provincial and municipal governments that will be elected this year.

OPINION

en-ca

2022-05-21T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-21T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://niagarafallsreview.pressreader.com/article/281573769307502

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