APTN News: Around two dozen people gathered at a supportive housing building in downtown Whitehorse on Nov. 1 to raise awareness about addiction-related deaths.
“We are losing an entire generation, and it needs to stop,” said organizer and recovering addict Teri-Lynn Schinkel. “It’s happening in all our communities around the Yukon, and it’s affected all of us.”
The Housing First building is operated by non-profit organization Connective in partnership with the Council of Yukon First Nations.
The government funded program provides housing to vulnerable people who may require substance use or mental health supports.
A spokesperson for Connective said there are 16 units at the Housing First building, as well as 20 Housing First units above the Whitehorse emergency shelter.
The territorial government said in an email to APTN News last month that a person died from a suspected drug overdose on Sept. 30 while visiting one of the Housing First units above the shelter.
Yukon Chief Coroner Heather Jones also confirmed in an email that a person died at the Housing First building on Oct. 25.
Speakers at the gathering said that person was Lacey Scarff, an Indigenous woman and beloved community member.
Thibaut Rondel, a spokesperson for the territory’s health and social services department, said in an email to APTN that there have been seven deaths at the Housing program since 2021. He said that number includes five residents and one guest who died at the Housing First building as well as the person who died while visiting Housing First at the shelter.
The deaths hit close to home for Schinkel who has lost many loved ones to addiction.
Schinkel said her son’s father was one of the first people to die from a drug overdose at the Housing First building in 2021.
“With the more the more recent death here, it sparked a fire inside me to make change,” she said. “I want to bring awareness to how many people we lost to Housing First to addiction,” she said.
“We’re struggling with a lot of grief right now. We lose somebody, and then we grieve, and then (we) try to heal from these losses and another one happens. So, it makes it real difficult to heal from grief and the trauma.”
Recovering addict Alex McKenna, who spoke at the gathering, said too many vulnerable people are falling through the cracks.
“Our loved ones are dying at mass rates and the agencies created to help are only band aids, they are not working or we wouldn’t be where we are today,” she said. “We all need to get strong again, and we need to stand. Together, and we need to fight back with love.”
Rondel said the government acknowledges “the significant health and social challenges faced by some of those it serves” and that it is working in collaboration with First Nations governments and other partners “to strengthening these support systems to address both immediate and long-term needs.”
Connective said it would not be commenting on the matter.
The organization’s operation of the shelter was the centre of a coroner’s inquest earlier this spring. The inquest focused on the deaths of four Indigenous women who died at the shelter, two of whom died under Connective’s watch.
The presiding coroner issued eight recommendations to enhance safety at the shelter, including a review of Connective’s policies and training procedures, and independent review and prioritizing hiring Indigenous staff and individuals with lived experience.
Both Connective and the Yukon government recently announced they had implemented all recommendations.
Jones said the Yukon coroner’s service has investigated 13 substance use related deaths so far this year. Two other substance use related suspected deaths are awaiting final analysis.
By Sara Connors