“Oh St.”
When mentioning an overdose just meters away, the sergeant of the Saskatoon police service. Chris Harris’s behavior, and the language, went from a session teacher to first respondent in an instant.
A man with dark hair and a gray hoodie with zipper was motionless on the concrete floor just inside what seemed to be a service door outside Midtown Plaza.
Harris knelt beside him and, with the composure of a carpenter running another table on his table saw, he took the necessary measures to ensure that the man lived.
Harris, a 19 -year -old veteran of the police force, agreed to take CBC through the center of Saskatoon for a tour of an area that has spent the last four years patrolling as part of the bicycle unit, also known as the community response unit.
In that role, mainly patrol the city center. He often sees people, as he said, in the worst days of their lives.
Sergeant Chris Harris, a 19 -year -old veteran of the Police Force, agreed to take CBC through the center of Saskatoon for a tour of an area that has spent the last four years patrolling as part of the bicycle unit, also known as the community’s response unit, for a conversation without filtering about the lack of housing and additions.
The city center is part of the central area of the city that faces a drug crisis. He reached a vertex in recent months with an impressive number of overdose that has used the city’s response mechanisms to a bump.
The reducing damage of the meadow, which houses the only supervised consumer site in the city, announced in the second week of March that it would close for the rest of the month to relieve tension against stressed employees. Two of the Locations of the Public Library of Saskatoon, where it was said that the staff treated routinely with people who used or sold drugs in the past, followed their example shortly after, temporarily closing too.
The veteran police officer was explaining his perspective on issues of homeless people and addiction in the nucleus when a man, standing on the southern side of Midtown Plaza, right next to 20th Street to the east, called him that “a guy is giving here.”
It was just after 3:15 PM CST on Friday afternoon.
Harris spray Naloxone on the nose of man and called him by name, Harris was familiar with the man, while shook him slightly. Then he spoke some commands on his radio.

From time to time, the man made a sound that looked like a deep snoring. Apart from that, the little bedroom where Harris attended the man was quiet.
Harris said the man was breathing and had a pulse. He explained that Naloxone takes about five minutes to enter. The man survived.
When Harris deals with someone who overdose, they often call him to the scene instead of stumbling with her. He said this was the fourth time in the last month that he had found someone in the middle of an overdose.
“It is definitely frequent,” he said.
He said he has worsened in recent years.
A controversial solution
Harris said that people who experience the lack of housing can be grouped into two categories: one is homeless through general poverty, lack of affordable homes or because they have financially lost balance; The other is people with complex needs, such as addictions and mental health problems, which act as barriers to obtain homes.
He estimated that 90 percent or more are in the last group. He said that those nine out of 10 people tell him that their addictions prevent them from finding a place to go. That is why he does not believe that affordable housing projects are the answer.
Last month, the mayor of Saskatoon, Cynthia Block, spoke at a press conference about the drug overdose crisis and made reference to the recent approval of the City Council of assembled housing units in the city.

According to the city’s documents, the city of Saskatoon obtained $ 41.3 million in federal funds through the Federal Housing Accelerator (HAF). Of that financing, the City Council put $ 26.1 million to create 757 new affordable housing units, including 256 units that will be built in land owned by the city. These units will be completed at the end of 2027.
On Tuesday, he said that affordable housing includes support and transition housing. According to Block, about 70 percent of the 757 affordable housing units approved by the City Council have support within them.
“It does not mean that all the people who enter into an affordable housing unit are ready to operate that house independently,” said Block.
Block said that, until their knowledge, people with social behavior with respect to the complex installation of needs in Idylwyld Drive.
Block said the city needs two more entrance centers to run 24 hours a day throughout the year as a temporary solution while the city expects new housing units.
“When people stay safely, everything changes,” said Block.
“Do some of those people who are in affordable homes require additional support and medical care and mental health and addiction support? Absolutely, many of them will do so, but housing is essential for the first step in recovery.”
Harris believes that it is a step in the right direction, but that the house should be one of the last steps, after someone is more stable.
“I could build three housing blocks worth the city, but if a person is so unstable due to drug addiction or mental health problems that as soon as you put them in that house, bad things will happen, then obviously you can’t do that,” said Harris.
His personal solution emphasized that it was not necessarily the vision of the police service, it would be to develop a massive and unique installation that maintains services from medical services to psychological services.
Ideally, it would fill the gaps in the recovery delivery model, such as waiting times.
“The rubbing of that is that it is not voluntary, it would be mandatory. It would basically be forced detoxification,” he said.
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Harris said that without multiple services available, as in an envelope center, if everyone is in a single window, people are more likely to collect.
He knows that involuntary detoxification is a controversial notion, but defends it.
“They are stabilized, they are receiving the attention they need, both psychological and medical, they are being fed, they are being housed, they are safe, other people around them are safe,” he said.
“I would say that this is a much better quality of life than sleep, dig through garbage containers, without knowing where your next meal comes from, at risk of being stolen, hitting.”
Some provinces adopt forced detoxification, experts go back
Alberta presented a bill on Tuesday to force people with severe substance addictions in involuntary treatment.
Saskatchewan has considered doing the same.
The act is controversial, with experts who push him back.
Shirley Isbister, president of the Urban Central Federation Methis Inc. (CUMFI), said there are gaps in recovery services, but does not believe that detoxification or forced treatment is the answer.
“I don’t think it’s even a human right, force someone to treatment,” he said.
“I think when people are ready, then we need to have the spaces available.”
Isbister said that there simply needs more homes for people. For addictions, it is about satisfying the needs of the people where they are.
She said Cumfi is looking to build about 20 small houses that include support to house people who do not want to go to treatment, keeping them out of the street.
The organization has supported living apartments units as part of a transition program for men in addiction recovery and has been very successful with it, he said.

Isbister believes that there must be specific houses in Saskatoon for people with addictions.
In an interview in March, Barbara Fornsler told CBC that people can stop using substances temporarily if they are forced to quit smoking, but will not last.
She is an assistant professor at the Public Health School at the University of Saskatchewan, whose research focuses on the use of substances and damage reduction.
“When the opportunity is available again, they will take it, because we have not approached those underlying drivers of substance abuse,” said Fornssler.