City staff in Kamloops say it appears emergency services are being called to more overdoses.
Director of Community and Protective Services Byron McCorkell spoke at council about the “latest issue” that is impacting the street population during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Funding that is now available is being accessed by people who are in street situation and we are now being presented with situations where individuals have come into money, and they’re not necessarily spending it on things that we’d want them to be spending it on. So there are incidents of overdoses and situations that the RCMP and BC Ambulance is now treating.”
Former Kamloops-North MLA and B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake shared the same sentiment in a recent interview on the NL Morning News, that people entrenched in addiction may be coming into more money because of COVID-19 government supports. He says preventing overdose deaths starts with ensuring a safe supply of drugs.
The Ministry of Poverty Reduction is providing $300 for April May and June to low-income residents during the pandemic.
McCorkell has spoken to Kamloops councillors in recent weeks about increased crime on the streets, and he has equated part of that to the provincial court system bringing in fewer inmates and relying on criminals to abide by conditions more often.
But McCorkell says getting the facts of the crisis to people on the streets is also a challenge.
“That is just amplified in the street community. You’ve got individuals who are disoriented as far as what’s going on, why is it being done. The same conspiracy theories you hear in the internet with the non-street population, you’ve got amped up in the street population,” he says.
“Our service agencies are trying hard to address the problem. This is a stressful time for our officer staff, because there’s not a lot we can do that makes an immediate impact. That the public, the general public, immediately identifies.”