Prairie Harm Reduction reduces hours amid funding crunch, overwhelming need

A Saskatoon centre that helps homeless people and those living with addictions is reducing its hours because staff can't keep up the growing number of people who need help.

"This was an incredibly hard decision. It's not one that I was hoping to have to make this year, but the reality is with hundreds of more people needing services, our building and our staff currently cannot manage," said Kayla DeMong, executive director of Prairie Harm Reduction (PHR).

PHR is scaling back the hours at its drop-in centre and supervised drug consumption site. The drop-in centre supports people who don't have anywhere else to go, while the drug consumption site is meant to prevent fatal overdoses and associated health complications, like infections or HIV transmission.

These services will only be available from 10:00 a.m. to4:00 p.m. CST as of May 1, 2024, instead of 10:00 a.m. to10:00 p.m. CST.

"We have, in the last few months, seen an increase in demand by over 200 new individuals accessing services, which requires us to have a lot more staff on site," DeMong said.

"Our day-staff need more capacity and more support to deal with the volume of people, and for evening staff we're looking at possibly six to seven full-time positions needed to manage what we're dealing with."

DeMong said the supervised consumption site and drop-in centre are funded through donations and fundraising efforts. It has $65,000 to operate this year, but realistically needs closer to $450,000.

The reduced hours will come at a cost that goes beyond finances, DeMong said.

"At this time, our evening staff are attending to multiple overdoses anight outside the building. When the safe consumption site is closed, nobody's gonna be there, and that's a really scary thing to try and come to terms with."

WATCH | Saskatoon supervised drug consumption site cuts hours due to lack of funding:

Saskatoon supervised drug consumption site cuts hours due to lack of funding

7 months ago

Duration 3:27

Prairie Harm Reduction, a supervised consumption site and drop-in centre, says it would need seven full-time employees to meet demand for services in the evening. The community organization, which doesn't receive any government funding for core operations, will close at 4 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. as of May 1.

The drop-in centre is also an important gathering place that provides a public washroom, coffee, food and phone access, she said.People who come through can connect with health-care and housing workers, therapyand cultural supports.

"We are seeing upwards of 70 to 80 people in that building at a time. Our space is incredibly small," DeMong said.

DeMong said the province isn't doing enough to fund support services as the homelessness and addictions crisis worsen. She said provincial government funding supports some of PHR's work, but not the drop-in centre or consumption site.

A government spokesperson said the province funds "over $2.2 million for Prairie Harm Reduction to deliver outreach and peer support programming, an intensive in-home support program for at-risk families, and a supportive living program for at-risk individuals in Saskatoon," but it doesn'tfund drug consumption sites.

The spokesperson said the government is focused on providing addictions treatment beds.

"I really do feel like it is the government's responsibility to step in and make this better, and do what is actually needed to support this community. Creating more treatment beds right now is not the solution. We need to keep people alive," DeMong said.