The city has filled three new positions related to its new encampment strategy and started a new pilot project to supplement outreach services. Matthew Pitcher, the new housing solutions coordinator and Eric Foster, the new encampment support specialist, presented an update to city council on the strategy at its July 11 meeting.
Pitcher said their roles, along with an encampment triage worker, were filled on June 19 and since then, the team has worked on mapping encampment locations for agency collaboration, streamlined communication and worked with 311 on encampment calls and responses, according to Pitcher.
He said the city has also started working with the Blood Tribe Department of Health to supplement outreach services provided by Streets Alive Mission.
“Our department is now also working with the Blood Tribe Department of Health to provide a street medicine program, which will be a supplementary service to the outreach services,” Pitcher said. “That will focus on providing healthcare services to individuals experiencing homelessness, including primary and preventative care. Our plan at this time is to operate that service as a pilot project until the end of October of this year.”
The medicine team will be able to do basic medical checkups, simple disease management, wound checkups and health education and council, as well as health referrals, according to general manager of community social development, Andrew Malcolm.
Since the strategy was implemented, the city’s encampment response team has responded to 70 calls from 311 reporting encampments. Malcolm said there are coordinated cleanups on a weekly basis and so far there have been 42 structures removed, totaling 2,345 kg of waste.
Pitcher noted in the update that the strategy has a specific goal and is not meant to address all issues around homelessness. He said since the last update in June, there have been six coordinated encampment cleanups, all in Galt Gardens.
“We do feel the ability to move the encampments as we have been and prevent the entrenchment, it has been meeting that mandate,” he said. “Anecdotally, we have heard that there are fewer individuals that are accepting housing referral support than we would like to see.”
Pitcher has worked with the city in the community social development department for nearly two years, according to his LinkedIn. Foster has worked in the city for just over a year, previously serving as transit supervisor.
BACKGROUND: Nearly 100 encampments disbursed so far this year as city implements new strategy