A scathing open letter from the Yellowknife Women’s Society (YKWS) released Thursday blasted the territorial government for how it handled the evacuation of the city’s homeless population in August, noting the organization still doesn’t know the whereabouts of some people who were sent south.
The letter states texts and emails in the leadup to the evacuation and afterwards to the NWT Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA) went unanswered, while reporting some clients were left without food, shelter and medicine after they were sent south. The letter states two day shelter users died of suspected drug overdoses.
“Many recognized from the beginning … that this group should have been kept together in a safe place with staff supports throughout the evacuation, the system chose instead to scatter a large portion of the NWT’s underhoused population across several large unfamiliar southern cities, with no tracking, no supports,” stated the letter.
“This situation was not and is not inevitable,” the letter continued, before listing point by point and date by date from Aug. 14 through Sept. 19 the events as YKWS recorded them. It also pointed out that not all those who were sent south returned, and two are even now listed as subsequently deceased.
The letter did not place blame on any one individual, but the overall system currently in place to respond adequately to the needs of its most vulnerable.
“[T]he fact that our fellow community members are now on the streets of big cities in Alberta was entirely predictable, and preventable. The authorities in the NWT took already vulnerable people and put them in exponentially more dangerous situations in an unfamiliar place,” the letter stated. “That happened, due to no choice or fault of those vulnerable people. While we understand that the intention of this forced relocation was to save all residents from grave immediate danger from the wildfires, what was missing was an equal intention to understand, analyze and then reduce harms/dangers we were sending people into.”
According to the letter, a shelter worker identified only as Zoe received an email on Aug. 23 from an unnamed official from Housing NWT inquiring about the situation and the status of the people under the purview of the YKWS.
“To be honest, the fact that Housing NWT/the GNWT is checking in on this only now, a week after the evacuation order, is disappointing to say the least,” Zoe was quoted in response.
The letter also alleges that housing those in Calgary was done in an ‘overwhelmingly disorganized manner’ and that group accommodations with social worker supports from the GNWT were never set up.
In response to inquiries made by NNSL Media, David Maguire, manager of communications with NTHSSA, stated that the authority couldn’t speak to everything in the letter right away due to its detail.
“We recognize the issues raised are important and will work with partners to understand how they can be best supported both now and in the future in providing services to residents,” he stated.
He did talk about the authority’s role in the evacuation response as it related YKWS, which included a primary focus on patients, clients, and long-term care residents (long term care) who were in the authority’s care at the time of the evacuation.
He also stated that support was given to YKWS in relation to their Spruce Bough program, which the NTHSSA contracts YKWS to deliver.
“This included support for staffing – including outreach nursing and shelter staff – and coordination with Alberta Health Services to highlight the needs of this particular group of residents and to advocate for services being provided to them,” he added. “We recognize that services delivered may not have fully met the needs of the YKWS, however NTHSSA made best efforts to collaborate and provide support in a very difficult situation that also included barriers that needed to be worked through, such as licensure of staff to practice in another jurisdiction.”
Maguire stated the authority hopes that the YKWS and all NGOs will participate in any after-action reviews that take place so challenges could be better understood for future emergency events.