City of Powell River has approved a lease that will allow an overdose prevention site to continue occupying property near Duncan Street for another year.
At the April 9 council meeting, councillors unanimously approved leasing the site to Lift Community Services of qathet Society for another year for $1. On June 1, 2019, the city entered into a $1 lease agreement with Powell River Employment Program Society, now known as Lift. The lease was for 10 months and expired on March 31, 2020.
City chief administrative officer Russell Brewer said the overdose prevention site will not be open for the next month or two.
“Lift is quite busy with responses as a result of the state of emergency for COVID-19, trying to address the needs of a vulnerable population in other ways as well,” said Brewer. “Probably, for a month, it will be closed and they do hope to reopen when they are able.”
According to a staff report, at an in-camera session of the February 4 committee of the whole meeting, staff sought direction from council regarding renewal of the lease with Lift for operation of the site. Council directed staff to negotiate a renewal of the agreement based on several achievements, according to the report.
One was attainment of a community wellness and harm-reduction grant to address issues such as establishment of more sharps containers and increased sweeps of the area for discarded needles. The other was better consultation and communication between the society and neighbours of the overdose prevention site.
The report stated that on March 9 it was released that Powell River had successfully attained a community wellness and harm-reduction grant from the community crisis innovation fund through BC Ministry of Health and administered by the community action initiative in partnership with the provincial ministry of mental health and addictions’ overdose emergency response centre. The funding will assist in further supporting activities of the Powell River overdose prevention site, according to the report.
Further, the report stated that the society has worked on establishing better communication with its neighbours and recently provided council with a full briefing on the site during a committee of the whole meeting in February.
