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So I'm Michelle Staples. the mayor of the city of Duncan and I've been the mayor since 2018?
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No. Yes. It's hard to remember now. 14 you were elected. But I've been on council since 2011.
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And I can tell you like the first couple of terms until the end of the second term, homelessness
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and the opioid crisis was not something that we'd really, it had touched here, but not dramatically.
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Starting at the end of my second term on council, it really started to accelerate here and our
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first OPS opened and there was a lot of concerns and challenges in communities and neighborhoods.
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And so when I ran and got elected as the first female mayor, just a little aside there, a
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little plug for the women out there wanting to get into politics and just wear your armor
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and have your friends. But... uh Yeah, so when I got elected, that was the very first question
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that I was asked by people. Business, I got a call from for business people who just essentially
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wanted me to get rid of the people who were living outside of their businesses. And they
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didn't care where they went, including across the street into another jurisdiction. And so
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we, as a council, we made that our number one priority is how do we deal with this and
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recognizing that at municipal government levels. We don't have jurisdictional authority over
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any of it. And as a small municipality, and even big cities don't have the money to deal
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with it, even if they did have the authority. You have to have both. You have to have that
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support financially. The tax burden on people to address it in communities um of any size
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would be extraordinary. And it already is, just because of trying to deal with the...
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trying to keep some level of... um support going for, you know, both the people who are
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unhoused and experiencing addiction and for neighborhoods and businesses. that's just
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sort of a bit of context. And so at that time, I was invited to something called Street School,
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and it was actually run by another council member of mine named Stacey Middlemas, who's an outreach
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worker, and she's a nurse. And she invited me and they wanted to talk to me about different
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things that could be done around homelessness and actually hear from people who are living
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on the streets. And so I went there and they talked about the fact that they just needed
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a place. They needed some, you know, a place to set up tents so they didn't have to get
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moved from every day. Some basic amenities, running water if possible, and you know,
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toilets, and that they could sort of, you know, start to build some kind of a community. And
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they shared a lot with me that day and I asked them if I could come back with other local
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leadership because this... You know, the city is the smallest city in the world. We're one
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square mile. But we're surrounded by other jurisdictions. uh Neighbouring Couch and Tribe
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is the biggest nation in BC. And we have to work together to solve these things. So we
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did a follow-up. They came. They heard. And then we had something called the Leadership
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Table. And the Leadership Table was something that you, Sonia, helped form and lead. And
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it was amazing. brought us all together to have a discussion with someone named James
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Toussaint, who was the head of the Canadian Mental Health Association in our area at that
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time. And he just sort of gave us a presentation about this is what's happening and here's the
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people. We know there's a hundred and I think it was 17 people at that time and here's what
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they need. know, 70 % of them could live in this kind of style of just getting them off
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the street into some kind of, you know, tiny home model. And then another 10 % needs some
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Need complex care or they need more supportive care and then there's you know another number
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that need to be dealt with by the criminal justice system or or need to to be um What's
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the word I'm looking for not I don't want to say institutionalized because that's not the
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like they need treatment they need well They need treatment, but they also they also need
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more than treatment. They need involuntary care You know there is there is space for that because
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it is needed for a certain percentage of people There's no doubt about that, as long as it's
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done well and with humanity and compassion and care. And so he went through this list of
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all the different options that we could look at. One of them was doing something like the
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village. One of them was having, uh I'll give an example of a group of uh older men. They
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were seniors. They all had severe alcoholism and they needed a lot of complex care for
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health reasons. And they also needed to be able to have alcohol uh given to them so many times
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a day, really as an ongoing care because of the damage it would do to pull them off of
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it. And so there was eight people, they actually did get a house for them that was rented and
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that was staffed and they were cared for and gave us other examples of things that are required,
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including things like treatment beds, including incarceration and also including extreme care.
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So we knew who was out there and we knew what they needed. And so we put together a plan.
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We brought all of the different health organizations, counseling, uh people from all the different
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um local governments, other levels of government. And we came together, I think there was about
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60 of us, and talked about, what does this look like? And we came up with a plan and
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that plan was written up and we sent it to the newly... m created Ministry of Mental Health
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and Addictions and said, like, here's what we need in our community and here's how much it
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would cost to operate. We can find the dollars for the actual, like, infrastructure costs,
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you know, in terms of whether it's the units for the housing or land leases, all the different
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things that we can do to support this because we can access funds from other sources and
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reach out to our community. there are spaces where we can make this work. And also, I want
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to add in that some of those were just people who needed a place to stay. So they just needed
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a place, they didn't have any addictions or any complex care needs. They just needed a
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place to live. And so also space for that was thought about ah at some of the different,
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like working farms and different places that people could set up something there for a
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dozen people and how they could contribute to what's happening at that space. So that
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was also included in it. And then looking also uh at how do we capture people who are struggling.
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and who could lose housing because they can't afford hydro or they can't afford, you know,
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their rent. And rather than having them lose that, you know, setting up something um so
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that they like a guaranteed income or a supported income or however people feel comfortable phrasing
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something where you're just taking care of people who are making minimum wage or dealing with
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disabilities and just can't survive, whatever you want to call that to make it feel good
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for you. um you know, that there is enough money for people to not lose those, that, basic,
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those basic things. And so from there, um, we invited her here and we took her out for the
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day and had lunch together and the presentation was given and we got a nice form letter, I
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don't know, maybe 30 days later, 60 days later and saying, you know, sorry, we know essentially,
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and we were all kind of surprised because we thought that this this ministry was actually
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created to address these types of things. And then we found out later that it had been given
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very, very little. I think it was a million dollars or something. It was such a low amount
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of money. So again, yes, it's created to be that mediator, perhaps. I'm not really sure,
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but it didn't actually have any funding to actually support communities to to do something. And
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then lo and behold, a month later, we moved into a global pandemic. And so All of a sudden,
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the first phone call I got again, just like after getting elected, was, what are you going
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to do with the, you know, I won't use the language people use, that my business is not going to
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be protected, I have to leave it and lock it up, and you know, what are you going to do
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about that? And so I called BC Housing, and I was like, so what are you going to do about
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this? You know, I called the minister's office of housing, what are you going to do about
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this? Because this is your jurisdiction, and it's your thing, and you already told us that
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you can't do what we want to do, so. you know, balls in your court. And the response was
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actually, you know, kind of ironic in some ways because they said, well, we'd like, you know,
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communities and regions to figure out what they need. And uh once they figure out what
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they need, they can let us know and then we'll help them, you know, support the plan. So the
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good news was we already had a plan. That was the exceptional news.