[CliffFletcher]

This problem isn’t confined to Calgary. Cities across North America are dealing with homeless addicts and the mentally ill in public spaces. Fentanyl and meth have been game changers. Housing affordability compounds the problem.

The public policy response adopted in the last decade of treating it as a public health issue and not a law enforcement issue was well-intentioned. You don’t get people healthy and clean by driving them away with threats of fines that cannot be collected. They’re better served by health services and access to clean drugs.

However, the now evident flaw of that approach is that the great majority on the streets do not want either of those things. They will not voluntarily enter treatment. And while they’ll take clean drugs if they’re offered, they prefer to use them away from public facilities, and they prefer the much stronger (and dangerous) street drugs, because if you want to get wasted the stronger the better.

So voluntary compliance with treatment has proven a failure.

In the meantime, the public has become frightened by the collapse of public order. And no, it’s not mostly comfortable middle-class types who are distressed by disorder. The people most affected by mentally unstable people on transit and in public spaces are the working class who have no choice but to use this public infrastructure. People who work at night, cleaners and food court workers and students who can’t afford cars. Particularly women - who, for reasons that shouldn’t have to be spelled out, are most anxious about being in proximity to deranged men in spaces that are evidently unpoliced, unmonitored, and where nobody will step in to help if you’re assaulted.

The public is not going to just grow accustomed to this level of disorder. They’re not going to become tolerant sophisticates who regard it as part of the rich tapestry of urban life. Public safety is a top issue with voters. Municipal governments across North America who can’t get a grip on this are getting the boot, even in the most progressive cities.

So the era of hands-off treatment of addicts and mentally ill on the streets is drawing to a close. Yes, this is a public health issue. But it’s also a public safety and public order issue. Long-term policies are needed to get at the root of addictions and mental illness. But in the short-term, we need to return to enforcing the law and restoring our transit, sidewalks, and parks to public spaces that the average citizen isn’t frightened to use.