Meth remediation adds $1 million to PA Housing costs

It also takes the unit out of use for at least 120 days and their family housing side has a zero-vacancy rate with 168 families on a waiting list.

Where there used to be one company in Prince Albert that offered meth remediation services, now there are eight, DeVos said.

The province-wide Saskatchewan Housing Authority oversees its municipal counterparts and has created a fund for remediation, so the money does not come directly out of PA Housing’s budget.

“PA Housing has one of the highest uses of that budget in the province,” DeVos said.

They also bought 50 meth detectors that can detect contamination in very small amounts and work in a similar fashion to smoke detectors.

Saskatchewan Housing so far will not allow them to put the detectors in occupied units out of concern for the legalities of tenant human rights.

No national or provincial guidelines have ever been established for safe concentrations of the drug in housing, which makes it difficult for them to make decisions at times.

However, some of his staff and some tenants, including children, have needed medical care in the hospital after exposure.

To DeVos, that is a work safety issue as well as a tenant safety issue. Workers don’t have portable detectors but when they do know a unit is contaminated, they only enter in full PPE.

The damage caused to units by users is extreme. DeVos shared photos of filthy units with holes in doors and walls and said that is not an exception when their tenants move out, it is standard although exceptions happen.

A sample of the damage caused to housing units by meth addicts. (PA Housing)

That street drug use is exceptionally high in the city is no surprise. In 2023, a Statistics Canada survey of wastewater in Canadian cities found Prince Albert to have the highest per capita meth load and cocaine load in the country.

The city asked for the data to be collected because they know there is an issue and want more external help dealing with it.

One request that has gone up the chain to the province and the federal government is for a complex needs facility to manage people with out-of-control addictions. So far, they have had no success but a meeting with local MLAs is planned soon.

Tenants that cause damage are not allowed to rent again unless they pay for the damages but even that has a timeline.

After five years, the amount is written off and Saskatchewan Housing’s policy requires that they be allowed to rent again. No background checks are done.

Another relatively new cost of doing business is the 24-hour security provided to residents of three seniors buildings in the downtown.

PA Housing also provides seniors housing to people over 55, with three towers in the downtown core.

While the seniors units have a higher vacancy rate, it is still only about five per cent with most of those in Sherman, Carment and Northcote towers. The buildings away from downtown have lower vacancies.

In early 2023, an 89-year-old man was seriously injured and later died after a woman who did not live there, found her way into the building and was rummaging through the communal kitchen.

She was told to leave by a third person, refused and became confrontational. The man, Carl Klarenbach, was a retired correctional officer. He attempted to help and was attacked.

He later died from his head injury. April Ross, age 40, was given a 4.5 year prison sentence.

Since then, PA Housing has changed how people get in all three of its buildings with a special key fob. In the future, they also plan to move the intercom system outside so there is no need to keep any of the doors unlocked.

Security guards are in place in all three buildings 24 hours per day, which adds another $1 million to the costs of public housing in Prince Albert.

Having on site security will remain well into the future, DeVos said, or at least until the city’s drug addiction problem is better controlled.

Some help would come through education of the tenants in the family units. Many believe that if they smoke meth indoors, they can avoid being caught by blowing the smoke into a ventilation point and they turn off the smoke detectors.

They assume, wrongly, that the smoke dissipates. It doesn’t. It travels through the building’s system and goes into other units.

DeVos would prefer they just go outside and smoke as it would be cheaper for the Authority but first they need to know what the potential consequences are.

The serious issues are the units that are occupied by meth cookers as the contamination rate has reached as high as 1,800 parts per million.

PA Housing uses a base line of 50 ppm to trigger remediation but typically sees levels at 200 to 300 ppm.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: @susanmcneil.bsky.social

by Susan McNeil

Meth remediation adds $1 million to PA Housing costs

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