Well the cold weather is here and with it come concerns for Prince Albert’s homeless population.
Last year saw four deaths recorded in the city due to a mix of cold weather and alcohol.
Donna Brooks of the YWCA says too often, people drinking outside don’t realize how cold they actually are:
“So they either think — ‘I can’t go to the shelter, I can’t go to detox’ or they think that they’re fine, that they’re warm enough that they’re not going to freeze to death but then they reach a level of intoxication where they do pass out and they do unfortunately freeze to death.”
She is asking for members of the public to call police if they see something suspicious like someone sleeping outside.
Still, she knows it’s a tough problem:
“No matter what we put in place, no matter what people do to keep people safe, if somebody goes behind a building and drinks in the dark where they’re not going to be found. There is nothing anybody can do.”
Brooks says of the four people who died last year at least three were seasoned street people who knew where to go to warm up.
But she says the numbing effects of alcohol still left them in a grave.