City in desperate need of more addiction services

By Natalie Bank Monday, Oct 1, 2007 Vernon Courier

The Vernon man who was killed in a cardboard bin was only looking for a place to hang his hat for a few hours. Days after his death, social service providers are wondering what would have happened if there had been other doors for him to knock on long before the night that became his last. Barbara Levesque and her staff at the John Howard House have been talking about the incident. She said for them, his death had a clear message: There‘s a growing need for addictions services at the street level. “The people who work in addictions services in Vernon are overloaded and we‘re also not reaching everyone who needs services and this is just a good example of that.” Levesque said there‘s a lot of people looking for addictions help in Vernon, but there‘s not always someone available to help. The city has good addictions services, she said, just not enough addictions services. When an addict also has a serious mental health problem, it‘s even harder for them to get access to care and counselling, said Levesque. Things like a street-level outreach worker and a future downtown health clinic will help alleviate that, but it‘s almost too little, too late. “Those things are coming into play behind the wave, so we‘re playing catch up right now,” said Levesque.

Police said the 53-year-old man, who was found by recycling staff at the Vernon landfill Thursday morning, was not homeless. He did, however, have a “lifestyle” that led him to look for shelter in a dumpster on occasion, according to officers. The man, whose family requested police withhold his name, was somewhere in central Vernon, when he likely decided to lift the lid on a recycling bin and climb in. Although police haven‘t ruled out foul play, they say he may have simply been cold, a little too far from home or he‘d had enough and wanted to rest for a while. Levesque said she often hears of people sleeping in downtown dumpsters and alleys, which can be as dangerous as the parks and places they are fleeing from. Sometimes they are people with addictions, sometimes they have mental illness and, often, both. Often, too, if you heard their story, Levesque said, you‘d be surprised about where they‘re from. “I want people to remember that many people that are struggling right now with these addictions or mental health problems are not from generations of people on welfare or people who have been poor all their lives. It‘s not.” “It‘s people who are our neighbours, from the middle class, who have owned homes. People have to set aside those stereotypes now.”