‘It gives people hope’: St. Thomas lauded for efforts to combat addiction and homelessness

The city is recognizing progress the community has made on homelessness and addition, reports CTV London’s Sean Irvine.

St. Thomas’s has been recognized province-wide for its efforts to combat homelessness and addiction — but there is still work to be done.

That was the takeaway on Friday as the community marked International Overdose Awareness Day.

As a flag was raised at city hall, many in the crowd remembered those lost to addiction. Some also reflected on their journey from despair to recovery

“I was on the street for four years,” shared Sara Pepper.

Today, she runs a peer support group, but five years ago, she was struggling to simply survive.

Pepper said at the time, St. Thomas residents were not as open to those battling addiction and homelessness. There were also far fewer services.

“We had one drop in at the time here, and that was it. There was no soup kitchen, there was no counselling or peer support. It was rough then. When you were on the street, you were on the street.”

“If you look at where we were about five years ago, things were a lot worse,” reflected St. Thomas City Coun. Gary Clarke. “But now we’ve made significant investments in St. Thomas and we started with homelessness. We felt that people needed a place to stay. And if they weren’t in the right frame of mind with a place to stay, then they couldn’t make other advancements in their life.”

From a growth in supportive housing to in-person services, the change is being felt at the ground level.

“It gives people hope, and when they have hope, they want to recover, and they want to do better,” shared Amanda Zielinski, an outreach coordinator at The Nameless, an agency supporting those battling addiction and in recovery.

While the situation has improved in St. Thomas, Pepper and some others believe one service is missing — a safe injection site.

“By not having that, it means they [those battling addiction] have to do it [take drugs] outside in places where maybe other people don’t want to see it, but they have no other choice.”

But with the provincial government moving away from safe injection sites in favour of Homelessness Addiction and Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs, it’s unlikely that will happen.

Still, Pepper is proud that the St. Thomas community continues to talk about solutions.

“Just the fact that people are discussing things like this now, and that it is not swept under the rug anymore. People can be safe. They can be open about what they need and they can hopefully, not be afraid to ask for help when they need help.”