Lloydminster’s Manager of Emergency Management reported to the city’s Governance and Priorities Committee that the city is facing “increasing impacts year after year with little investment in root causes or systemic solution from higher levels of government.”
He told the committee that the costs of addressing homelessness and social disorder for the city create approximately $3 million in costs from services like roads, public facilities and fire protection.
“Municipalities should not be forced to choose between fixing roads, funding fire services, or responding to a crisis that the Moe government has failed to address,” said Erika Ritchie, Shadow Minister for Government Relations.
“The Sask. Party is effectively taxing Saskatchewan families twice—once through their provincial taxes for services they aren’t getting, and again through property tax hikes required to deal with the crisis they’ve ignored.”
With growing complaints from business owners downtown, the city council recently approved $325,000 for two new summer programs, one to deal with encampment clean ups, littering and needle pickups, the other an enforcement and navigation unit to patrol high-impact areas and connect people to recovery services.
Tyler Lorenz is the former director of the Resident in Recovery centre in Lloydminster, a 12-bed residential treatment centre that provides pre and post treatment services to people living with addiction. He said there’s a 6-month waiting list to get in.
Lorenz says while the city’s efforts are laudable, it won’t solve the drug crisis plaguing cities across the province because the provincial government hasn’t adequately invested in drug treatments and support.
“The drug crisis is why we have unhoused people and crime. RCMP know where people need to go but there’s nowhere to refer people to. If they’re taken to hospital they're released hours later because there's nowhere for them to go.
Everybody knows that these people need additional mental health and addiction supports but there's nowhere to get them into. Most people are getting released to shelters or worse, back up to the street. Nobody's going to achieve success doing that.”
Lloydminster isn’t alone. The City of Saskatoon released a report that took the Sask. Party government to task for “downloading” provincial costs onto municipal taxpayers. Fire and police services are being stretched to the breaking point with surging overdoses and the closure of Prairie Harm Reduction. Recently the head of Saskatoon’s Community Clinic urged council to provide more resources to address the growing drug crisis to reduce the demand on fire and police services.
In some cases cities have been forced to increase property taxes.
“Saskatchewan families deserve better than a government that keeps ignoring a crisis that is costing lives and overwhelming communities like Lloydminster,” said Leroy Laliberte, Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Addictions.
“Every delayed treatment bed, every missing recovery space, and every gap in mental health support means more people ending up unhoused, cycling through emergency rooms, or encountering the justice system instead of getting real help.”
“It really is time for change.”
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