Mental health and addictions group to lead protest at city hall

A grassroots group in Sault Ste. Marie plans to stage a public protest outside of city hall Oct. 25 in an effort to push municipal leadership to lobby all levels of government for addictions and mental health funding. 

Addictions and Mental Health Advocates (AAMHA) founder Donna DeSimon says the recent developments surrounding the $8.4-million downtown plaza project that was given the go-ahead by city council last month was the last straw for many of the group’s members, who she says have “never felt more disconnected from our municipal leaders.” 

“My group basically said to me, we want to do something, and we don’t care what you say. I had to give them my blessing,” said DeSimon, speaking with SooToday Saturday. “So, we’re doing something. They’re so annoyed.”

AAMHA provides free meals to the city’s most vulnerable on a weekly basis. The group provided 99 plates of food during Thanksgiving weekend. 

“You know, we feed them on Sunday nights down at the corner of Albert and James, and when one of them says to you, ‘I wish we were as important as that plaza,’ it hits home,” DeSimon said.

Mental health and addictions resources sorely lacking in Sault Ste. Marie: AAMHA

DeSimon says funding is urgently needed for addictions support like detox and harm reduction, adding that additional funding for the Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team and the Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinic is required in order to provide support services around the clock. 

“It needs to be there 24 hours a day,” said DeSimon. “When there’s a crisis at three o’clock in the morning, who do you call? You call the police. And they’re overworked, and they’re not really trained to deal with some of the mental health issues that are happening today.”

AAMHA says that support is needed in order to fund transitional, barrier-free housing and additional safe beds in the city. 

“There’s no care after they come out of detox, there’s no safe beds, there’s no aftercare. And this is why they’re dying - they may go to detox and get 10 days under their belt, and then they come out and do the same amount of drugs they used to do.

“And it kills them, because there’s nowhere safe to be while they’re waiting for treatment.”

"...it's a much larger problem than something that a municipal budget can really address effectively," says mayor of opioid crisis 

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Christian Provenzano told SooToday editor Frank Rupnik during a budget-related question-and-answer session last week that the issue of the opioid crisis and crime affecting downtown is something that the municipality has worked on with the Algoma Leadership Table and District of Sault Ste. Marie Social Services Administration Board for a number of years now. 

“But the reality, a large part of the reality here is that we need support from the other levels of government to make sure that the health-care infrastructure is in place in our community to give people the care they need," said Provenzano at the time. "Substance misuse and substance abuse is a health issue, and we need to make sure that people can access the care that they need to access. And if people can’t access that, we’re going to continue to see the problems that we’ve seen over the last number of years. So you know, it’s a much larger problem than something that a municipal budget can really address effectively.

“We have very little funds in our budget. Algoma Public Health is an independent budget, but it levies through us. So it’s part of our levy, it’s part of our municipal levy. Outside of Algoma Public Health and those health funds that it levies, the municipality doesn’t levy money for health care," Provenzano continued. "The municipality doesn’t have the authority to levy money for health care. The municipality doesn’t have the authority to build the health care that needs to be built, or the resources to build the health care that needs to be built to provide people the care that they need.”

Opioid-related deaths continue to climb in Algoma

Algoma had the highest rate of opioid-related deaths in Ontario during the first three-and-a-half months of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as highest rate of deaths during the three-and-a-half month period leading up to it. 

According to provincial data, there were 19 confirmed and suspected opioid-related deaths between March 16 and June 30 of 2020, for a rate of 16.6 deaths per 100,000 people. 

Meanwhile, in the three-and-a-half month period from Dec. 1 of 2019 to March 15 of 2020, there were 14 confirmed and suspected opioid-related deaths, for a rate of 12.2 per 100,000.    

The same data provided by the province shows that 12 confirmed and probable opioid-related deaths occurred in the APH region within the first three months of 2021, with half of those deaths occurring in the month of March.

Ontario’s Roadmap to Wellness strategy aims to provide $3.8 billion over the next 10 years.

But DeSimon says the province’s response to the growing opioid crisis in the APH region may already be too late for the city's vulnerable population. 

“We don’t have 10 years. That’s the bottom line. We’re wiping out a whole generation of kids from 25 to 41, and the way the city’s going after this plaza, it’s a virtual slap in the face to the vulnerable and their families,” she said. “Even the families I deal with, they can’t believe it. They just can’t believe that the issue that we are having is so overlooked.”

“And yeah, we know funding is provincial and federal - but if our municipal government isn’t campaigning for this money for us, we’re never going to see any improvement. They’re going for the money for the plaza. I don’t think that’s as important.” 

There were 53 opioid-related deaths in the Algoma Public Health region in 2020, more than tripling the 17 opioid-related deaths the year before, and eclipsing the previous record of 26 deaths in 2018.