Lethbridge will not get Alberta Sheriffs to help with enforcement at encampments this spring and summer. City council made the request earlier this month and wanted sheriffs to be sent as early as May.
Mayor Blain Hyggen says he has communicated with the province and though no sheriffs will be sent, other help is being looked at. He says the province is looking at creating a Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods unit in the city, but no timeline or details are available yet.
“What that does is that will help find those that are preying in the most vulnerable, so drug dealers, drug houses etcetera and there will be one of these units set up in Lethbridge. We have asked that for many years and they have had to bring these folks down from Calgary, Edmonton and other areas but there will be an office right here in Lethbridge so that is extremely exciting news for us,” he says.
Hyggen says the province does not have the resources to send sheriffs to the city and they are not specifically trained for enforcing at encampments.
“We are working on many different things, it is really complex and I will say that we do need to have a place for these folks to be and so of course if there is no place to go then that’s when we see more of the encampments start to pop up so we are working diligently with our provincial partners as it is their jurisdiction for housing so we are working with them to make sure that we can find adequate housing and also shelter space and expand on that,” he says.
BACKGROUND: Council to ask province for sheriff resources to deal with encampments