Yes. Thank you.
The issues we're having were partially covered in the last question. We have this cycle. We come into contact with an individual, and if there is an allegation of a criminal nature and-or we don't necessarily have a medical issue, and the individual is potentially arrested for a criminal offence, typically they are taken to the police station. Police stations are not suitable for this type of individual. First off, if they have a drug addiction problem and they're high at the time, it's definitely not the right place to be. Or worse, if they're coming down off the high and they're detoxing, it's even more of a medical issue and-or a safety concern. Once they do present in a formal structure for court, whether it be for a bail hearing or simply an uncontested release, unfortunately, with the process in general, whether it be through the ministry of the attorney general's office or the justices of peace, we're finding the individuals back on the street, typically within hours of our arrest.
No matter what the central allegation is, we find that a lot of the time these people are, first off, homeless. They don't even have a place that they call a residence. We would call that “no fixed address”. The next thing is that they're potentially put back on the street again, into the same environment they just came from, where they had just been out potentially committing criminal offences, typically property crimes involving breaking and entering into homes or businesses and-or personal property being stolen or vandalized. They get put right back out on the street again, literally within hours. Typically, they're of no fixed address and are put back onto the street with some quasi-conditions. Within sometimes hours, sometimes days, we're having the same interaction with this individual again, where we have no other recourse. Now they're potentially breaching conditions they've been released under, and we put them back in front of the court system again, potentially for a very minor infraction. But, once again, they haven't reported that they need to go for medical help. They haven't suggested they need medical help. The furthest thing from their mind is the fact that they need to go to some form of detox; nor would they be suitable, potentially, for detox at the time.
From there, they also know that once their detox is complete, they have no other avenue to go to. Even if they go to detox and last out the seven days at the hospital, they're basically shuttled back out onto the street again, and promptly, because we don't have anywhere to send them right away. If we have a referral on a queue to send them to a treatment facility, sometimes that can be days or weeks away, so we're basically just putting them in a holding pattern. We hope they're on their honour system, and they're not going to reuse or reacquaint themselves with what we were trying to detox them from—or any substance for that matter—and hope that they can hold the line until we get them into a facility. The next thing you know, as soon as we open that door and let them out, whether voluntarily or not, they're back at it again. By the time a bed does become available for some sort of treatment, they're not interested; and we have to start over again anyway, because now they'd have to detox.
It's a vicious cycle. It just seems to be a revolving door to which there's no direct answer.