Vancouver’s homeless population often involves individuals who have mental health, addiction, and crime issues, and it’s the police who are typically the first responders.
Depending on the situation, jail can become their institution or a hospital a temporary address for some of the homeless going through these issues.
“Our data and the hospital data certainly suggests it’s increasing,” said Howard Tran with the Vancouver Police Mental Health Portfolio.
“Eight to 10 per cent each year of more cases of mental health apprehensions, presentations at the ER departments, they’re over capacity. We need more resources, more beds and services. The problems aren’t going away, it’s not getting less, and it’s growing.”
That’s where the Assertive Outreach Team (AOT) is hoping to make a difference. In March, the Vancouver Police Department partnered with Vancouver Coastal Health to form AOT. It’s a new model they’re trying to develop and something that has not been done before in B.C.
AOT is trying to intervene at the critical time — in the first 72 hours after a person is released from the psychiatric unit. Tran said, if they can manage to intervene in that period of time, they can mitigate a lot of risks.
There are four full-time police officers and six full-time health workers on the AOT, which include a psychiatric nurse, social workers, nurses and a psychiatrist. The team, usually comprised of one officer and a health profession, travel in unmarked cars to find the homeless people who need help.
“We try to intervene practically. We don’t wait for the situation to happen and unfold,” Train said.
“We go out and make sure the person is on the medication and their needs are being met, and their services are wrapped around them before they do something tragic or terrible to themselves or to others.”
There was one recent case involving a teen with mental health issues who was apprehended but wasn’t homeless. According to the search warrant, he allegedly killed his dog and kept it in the house for weeks.
The 19-year-old had apparently owned the dog, a brindle-coloured French bulldog. After securing a warrant to search his home on Nov. 3, the SPCA found the body of the dog which had a significant amount of blood loss and trauma to its head.
“The circumstances surrounding this case are troubling and, once again, not all the facts necessarily have come in, but we will be recommending charges to Crown,” said Marcie Moriarty, SPCA Chief of Prevention and Enforcement.
The AOT visited the 19-year-old shortly after his B.C. Mental Health Act release and the team psychiatrist committed him.
That gap, between acute care in the hospital and the community, is what AOT is trying to fill and so far, they seem to be getting good results.
“We’re seeing about a 35 to 40 per cent reduction in negative police contacts and over about 50 per cent reduction in mental health apprehensions for Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and AOT clients,” Tran said.
~ with files from John Daly
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