If someone shows up at the Whitehorse Salvation Army Centre of Hope under the influence of drugs or alcohol – intoxicated, but non-violent – he or she won’t be denied a meal or a bed for the night.

“As long as the behaviour’s not a risk, we don’t expect people to be sober,” Ian McKenzie, the executive director of the Whitehorse Salvation Army, told the Star Wednesday.

McKenzie was speaking to policy at the still-operating Black Street Sally Ann facility, as well as the new, nearly $15-million Centre of Hope at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Alexander Street.

The Star interviewed McKenzie after NDP MLA Kate White posed questions in the legislature yesterday about the new Centre of Hope.

She asked the Liberals whether the downtown facility, built largely with funds from the territorial government, will reflect their oft-stated housing first policy.

This policy, which the Liberals promised to adopt if elected in their 2016 campaign, “recognizes that barrier-free housing, where individuals struggling with addictions are able to access housing despite their condition, is the first step on a better path to wellness,” White clarified for the house.

Health and Social Services Minister Pauline Frost reconfirmed the government’s commitment to this policy in a scrum with local media after question period Wednesday.

She also clarified that it will be operationalized by way of substance use protocol in the new Centre of Hope, an answer she didn’t clearly provide in the house.

While ownership of the multimillion-dollar building lies with the Sally Ann, the Yukon government is funding the Centre of Hope’s operations and maintenance expenditures to the tune of $1.2 million every year for the next three years.

25 emergency beds

The Salvation Army’s oversight committee will help determine access to the 25 emergency beds in the new facility, and people are not going to be turned away simply because they aren’t sober, the minister told reporters.

“The design is not intended to push people out whether they’re using or not, that’s the reality of our community,” Frost explained.

“These individuals ... they’re having a difficult time. You’re not going to create more barriers for them; you want to take down the barriers, you want to give them opportunities.”

McKenzie confirmed that this shelter-first protocol – providing Salvation Army users access to the facility regardless of sobriety – represents an attitudinal shift in the Army’s service dispensation.

The Army was founded as a religious organization in England in 1865, and began its work in Canada in 1882.

The Sally Ann is now the largest non-governmental provider of social services in the country – all of which, according to the Army’s website, evolved from its founding philosophy: “Soup, soap and salvation.”

“I know in some of our centres, and certainly going back a few decades, it was more the practice that sobriety was a requirement of coming in,” McKenzie said.

“As research shows improvements in methodology for dealing with issues like homelessness and addictions treatment, the Salvation Army certainly responds to those changes, those findings as they occur.”

He noted that Whitehorse has always been ahead of the curve – often allowing people access even if they were under the influence of a substance.

However, there’s been demonstrable change in this policy in the territory even in the last year and a half.

The list of people barred from entering the Black Street Salvation Army facility for a night or a few days due to what is often intoxication-fuelled behaviour has shrunk considerably in the last 18 months– from between eight and 10 to three or four these days.

Sally Ann staff are typically the ones charged with making the call as to whether someone can enter the building and utilize its services.

“The only condition we put on access to the services is if an individual presents a risk to other folk in the facility, our staff, or even themselves in terms of their current state of behaviour,” McKenzie said.

Case-by-case basis

Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, with management on-call 24/7 if staff need advice as to how to proceed with a particular individual.

If someone is barred from entering or asked to leave the Salvation Army, staff may call emergency medical services or the RCMP based on the reasons for limiting access. Each of these incidents is then reviewed by management.

The same policies will be in place in the new Sally Ann facility.

McKenzie said the Army is also working with Alcohol and Drug Services (ADS) and the Sarah Steele treatment facility to formalize policy that will provide additional options for those they can’t let into the centre.

While McKenzie declined to provide other details as to the specifics of this policy, he said it could see people flagged at the Sally Ann taken directly to the detox centre at Sarah Steele.

He also noted that the design of the new Centre of Hope provides for a double lobby where people denied access to the centre can wait while staff call for any help an individual might need.

After a death in the territory in 2000, a jury called on the Salvation Army, the RCMP, ADS, Health and Social Services, and the Whitehorse General Hospital to collaborate more closely when dealing with those struggling with addiction.

Both Frost and McKenzie stated that policies surrounding drinking and drug use in the Centre of Hope’s 20 transitional apartments will be less tolerant than those applied for the facility’s emergency services.

The Salvation Army is taking a “more dry approach” with residents of these apartments, McKenzie said.

“We won’t necessarily have someone leave because they’ve been drinking, but it will be part of our sort-of overall case management process that we’re looking at those as being spaces where people aren’t using.”

Frost pointed out that many of the individuals living in the longer-term transitional units will have just finished drug or alcohol treatment.

Drugs, alcohol forbidden

Alcohol or drugs have never been and will not be allowed inside the Salvation Army facility, McKenzie confirmed.

The transitional units, as well as the Centre of Hope’s drop-in programming, will open to users in early 2018.

The emergency beds and community meal services were supposed to be operational by the end of October, but delays related to equipment and furnishings pushed the date back.

The centre’s doors are expected to open for these services tomorrow, according to McKenzie.