Police crackdown on Main a pointless, ineffective bit of street theatre

Winnipeg has just taken an enormous step backward in the ongoing challenge to address the growing homeless, mental-health and addiction crises.

In a campaign that began June 24 and 25, the Winnipeg Police Service deployed significant numbers of officers to some of the roughest spots along Main Street, confronting anyone who appeared to be engaged in open drug use.

The WPS said that over the first two days, it “interacted” with more than 100 people, making 25 arrests — two for drug offences and 23 related to active warrants or breaches of court orders — and taking another 20 to hospital emergency rooms.

Three individuals were taken to the province’s controversial 72-hour detox centre, but they weren’t admitted.

Senior WPS officials said the sweep was prompted by ongoing and increasing complaints about open drug use, homelessness and the collateral mess and mayhem from residents, business owners and workers commuting downtown.

“People are fed up,” one WPS official said. “We are answering that call.”

The WPS should definitely be involved in addressing chronic street-level drug use or crime. Theoretically speaking, progressive-minded policing can be a positive accompaniment to social and health services that are geared towards finding real and lasting solutions.

This was not that kind of police effort.

To his enormous credit, WPS Chief Gene Bowers conceded after the first two days of the sweep that he should have done a better job of co-ordinating with organizations that help the homeless and addicted, none of which were warned ahead of time about the crackdown.

However, Bowers did not back away from his commitment to do something about rampant drug sales and use out in the open on the city’s streets.

This is a prime example of how people from different perspectives, who all share the same goal, end up embracing radically different solutions. Some cut straight to the heart of the root causes of the problems; others ignore the foundational context and simply seek brief and fleeting relief.

If the goal — shared by police and service organizations — is to get addicts off the street and into a better life so that they do not feel the need to use drugs openly and without concern about the impact it is having on others in their immediate vicinity, then a show of force from police is the worst possible way to go.

As many service organizations noted, rousting drug users and homeless people only puts additional stress and suffering on a population that is already overstressed and being suffocated by misery.

It doesn’t help them find a safe place to sleep. It doesn’t help them confront and possibly overcome an addiction or mental-health challenge. But it almost certainly guarantees they will return not long after the police leave.

And that’s precisely what happened: dozens of suspected drug users cleared from the sidewalk outside the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority offices on Main Street last Wednesday and Thursday were back Friday morning.

Nobody should be shocked. Police took people off the street with no clear idea about where they should go. Of course they returned.

This is the same simple-minded thinking behind the city ordinance that allows homeless encampments to be cleared.

Nobody wants homeless people living in makeshift encampments, whether they are living near schools or playgrounds or not. However, clearing the encampments hasn’t led to a reduction in the number of homeless people on the street, less open drug use or fewer people suffering mental-health crises in public places.

There is no suggestion, despite its dubious levels of success, that the police sweep — planned for 10 days — will be discontinued. In fact, you can bet that based on the way civic politicians are dining out on WPS efforts in this, the summer before a municipal election, the crackdown is likely to continue, with more to follow.

If that’s the case, can we all agree — at the very least — that there is a better way of doing this?

Bowers pledged to do a better job of co-ordinating with social service agencies so that anyone who is being removed from a public place can be linked to housing, primary health care, mental health and addictions supports.

Although a police sweep isn’t the preferred option for those organizations, there is no doubt that politicians and the police must respond to the concerns being expressed by residents, business owners and others who go downtown.

If there is a guiding philosophy here, it should be to put our time, effort and resources into ways to make the situation better; a police sweep disconnected from necessary supports services does not move us closer to better.

Better should also be the priority of those whose complaints sparked the police sweep. People who are invested in the core of the city must demand that responses are geared towards some sort of better outcome.

The police crackdown and the encampment-clearing bylaw are to addictions, homelessness and mental health issues what chicken soup is to a raging case of influenza. It might make you feel better for a moment, but it won’t cure your illness.

Winnipeg’s core needs less chicken soup, and more curative efforts.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.