A van and trailer have been sitting in Victory Way Church’s icy parking lot for the past few weeks. The outreach van is a result of the efforts of a Community Action Team (CAT), a collaboration between various organizations focused on providing services to the homeless and at-risk population.
The outreach van provides primary care referrals, counselling, harm reduction, warm winter gear and more.
Willow Giesinger is the president of the Wild Women of the North Society, one of the groups in the CAT. She said the van is essential to help save lives and keep people safe throughout the winter.
“We bring the resources out into the street instead of them having to go into the agencies or organizations,” she said. “We have a lot of issues with biases in the health care system, either because people are poverty-stricken or Indigenous.”
The van is avaiable at Victory Way between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. each day and delivers services elsewhere in the community during other hours.
“The logistics during COVID-19 are insane,” Giesinger said. “We’ve got to isolate all donations for a week before they even go out. We’ve had to get smaller teams to work together so no one’s going outside their bubble. A lot of our service agencies have closed their doors or minimized their services.”
Charlene Burmeister is the founder and executive director of the Coalition of Substance Users of the North (CSUN), another group working as part of the CAT.
She said COVID-19 has meant this kind of outreach work is even more important.
“We know alcohol use has gone up 30-40 per cent since the pandemic. So we can assume drug use had done the same, which puts people at an even higher risk,” she said. “You’re also asking people to isolate. The opposite of addiction is connection. When you’re forced to isolate for your safety and forced to navigate a system that is not taking COVID-19 measures (your dealer is not going to keep you six feet apart), it’s insane.”
One of the key features of the CAT’s outreach work is the involvement of peers and people with lived and living experience with substance use. Burmeister said similar efforts from across the Northern Health region don’t have that component.
“When you’re accessing harm reduction supplies at the hospital at the emergency, where historically, you’ve been treated like s***, you’re not going to go there, you’re not going to feel comfortable,” she said. “The peer part of this outreach van is integral to its success.”
Burmeister said Northern Health is finally following some of the proven solutions that other health regions in the province have successfully enacted.
Giesinger called on the province to change how they give out funding, as the northern region’s overdose rate has spiked to the highest in the province.
“[It’s a challenge] when our province delegates funding by demographics as opposed to geographics,” she said. “Northern Health gets the same amount of money as one district down in Fraser Valley. We’re trying to accommodate a huge area.”
Still, Burmeister sees the inclusion of peer support in measures like the outreach van as an important step in the right direction.
“Historically, and still presently, we’re left to die,” she said. “It’s important for us to be motivating factors for change. And that’s change in all areas.”
Funding for the warming trailer only runs for three months. Giesinger said she’s working to find a way to extend their hours as the colder weather sets in.
“Even at 40-below last year, there was five people out,” she said. “Which is five people too many at 40-below.”
READ MORE: Advocates share fear of worsening overdose crisis in 2021, want national safe supply
READ MORE: CSUN hosts overdose awareness day in Quesnel
Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email: cassidy.dankochik@quesnelobserver.com
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