Tracy couldn’t believe that Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples was handing her a cup of coffee. It was June 2020, the day she was moving into the Ramada in Duncan that had been converted into temporary COVID-19 housing for people who were living on the street.
“She served me,” recalls Tracy, who had been struggling with substance use since an injury a decade earlier. The combination of having a roof over her head for the first time in years and the city’s mayor doing something for her made Tracy feel cared for, something that has been helpful in her recovery, she says.
Tracy was one of 10 panelists who spoke last week at Better Together Cowichan, an event at the Cowichan Community Centre that presented community perspectives and the impacts of the toxic drug crisis. Several of the speakers recounted how during the pandemic the local community worked together and, with provincial assistance, temporarily housed most everyone who had been living on the street.
The event, according to its organizers, aimed to recapture that spirit of collaboration and to heal divides in the community by bringing together those on the frontlines of the toxic drug crisis, including law enforcement, businesses, service providers and those with lived experience.
Better Together event created to combat fractures in the local community
Cailey Foster, peer coordinator with the Cowichan Community Action Team (CAT), says that she and her colleagues are frustrated by “fractures” in the local community over the toxic drug crisis that have been exacerbated by misinformation and sensationalized stories shared on social media. As a response, they decided to create something that could reduce fears and build empathy through providing accurate information and a focus on “people-centered” solutions.
“Divisiveness isn’t going to help us obtain a healthier community, so how can we come together respectfully?” Foster says. “We’re seeing more and more that there’s people out there who want to do something or maybe they’re frustrated with what they see and they just want to understand more, so we thought let’s just host something for the general public.”
She and CAT coordinator Johanne Kemmler created a Better Together Cowichan working group consisting of the Cowichan Coalition to End Homelessness, Revolve Cowichan, United Way B.C., Our Cowichan Communities Health Network and CAT. Kemmler says it’s important to note that members of their peer team — people with lived experience of the toxic drug crisis — provided input along the way. She says they don’t do anything without peer input.
The organizers were pleased that more than 100 people attended the event, which also featured information booths and free food and drink.
“I was encouraged that there were so many people in the community who came out to find out what was going on … and that people care,” Kemmler says. “People do care.”
A little empathy goes a long way
The event’s keynote speaker was Guy Felicella of Vancouver, who described his arduous road to recovery. He was followed by three panels on health, community and lived experience.
The first panel on health included Corey Ranger, registered nurse and president of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association; Erin Kapella, Cowichan Tribes mental health manager and opioid crisis response lead; and Adria Borghesan, community health leader with Cowichan Women Against Violence Society. Panelists for the second panel centered on community were: Katherine Devine, executive director of the Duncan Downtown BIA; Rachel Hastings, City of Duncan’s manager of Building and Bylaw; Staff Sergeant Ken Beard, head of the North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP; and Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples. The final panel on lived experience featured Felicella, Tracy (who wants to be identified only by her first name) and Christine Barelli, who dropped out of school in Grade 7 and ended up living on the street during her teens due to her substance use before getting clean five years ago and working as a harm reduction outreach worker.
For Felicella, his life started getting back on track one Christmas morning in 2012. After a traumatic childhood, he had spent much of the past three decades in addiction, gang life and either incarceration or homelessness. That morning as he lay in front of a doorway on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a woman handed him $50 and a cup of coffee, and then gave him a hug before walking away.
He calls it “the hug that changed me” because it showed him that he was still worthy. He says he tried afterwards to track the woman down on social media, to no avail, to let her know that her hug gave him the strength to succeed at his next effort at recovery.
Whether it was the hug Felicella got from a stranger or the coffee Tracy received from the mayor, an overriding theme from speakers at the Better Together event was the value of treating people humanely even when they’re really struggling. Tracy thanked the Cedar Branches Women’s Shelter for looking past her struggles and “seeing” her.
“Being treated like a human being helped me decide I can do this [recovery],” she says. “I can be a human being.”
According to Staples, the public needs to recognize that the majority of people living on the streets are originally from the Cowichan Valley with a small percentage who are not from the region. Wherever their origin, Staples says they are here and it’s important for people to accept that they “are part of us.”
One demonstrable way to show empathy is Corey Ranger’s recommendation that everyone, not just registered nurses such as himself, carry a Naloxone kit and know how to use it to reverse overdoses. He explains that doing so gives people struggling with substance use a powerful message that “I want you to live.”
Collaboration is the way forward, panelists say
Many of the panelists expressed concerns about a lack of available local services for those who want to turn their lives around, including affordable treatment beds and more second-stage transitional housing options.
While no one spoke directly about next week’s provincial election, there were comments about the value of harm reduction efforts — which has become a hot-button election issue — and how things such as safe consumption sites are not in opposition to recovery. Felicella says he is evidence of this.
“Without harm reduction, I wouldn’t exist. Without harm reduction, my kids wouldn’t exist,” Felicella says.
Despite these concerns and comments by the panelists about the ongoing local impact of the toxic drug crisis on individuals, businesses and neighbourhoods, there was a fair bit of optimism at the event. In large part, this was due to community partnerships that are having positive results, as well as possibilities for further collaborations.
Several panelists noted the success of The Village — 34 housing pods in Duncan created in 2022 — in serving as a model for low-barrier housing that can be an essential first step on the road to recovery. Kapella, opioid crisis response lead for Cowichan Tribes, says the Village has been “absolute magic” in decolonization, lowering costs, reducing violence and getting people into treatment. Nearly 20 per cent of Village residents have gone into treatment compared to about one per cent of those unhoused, Kapella says.
Hastings, Duncan’s bylaw manager, says The Village has reduced the number of calls for enforcement as residents there are taking better care of their surroundings. She also pointed to how the Safer Community Plan has led to better coordination to address public safety. Similarly, Beard, head of the North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP, cited successful partnerships with bylaw and collaboration between law enforcement and service agencies.
“It’s ultimately about partnerships and finding solutions that work for everyone,” Hastings says.
According to Foster, the organizers of Better Together Cowichan didn’t know in advance what the panelists were going to say, but she says it was interesting that everyone, from the business community and law enforcement to frontline workers and those with lived experience, noted the value of collaboration. She hopes the event will shift public attitudes in a way that will broaden support for current and future collaborations — including those with higher levels of government — as well as increase understanding and compassion for the people in our community struggling with substance use.
“Everyone there [at the event] could recognize their worth … but when that person is sleeping on a sidewalk are they valued in the same way?” Foster says. “What I hope for is that people take away empathy, really recognizing that people are worthwhile even when they’re deep in struggles, and that every person has worth and potential.”
