Revised - Premier Ranj Pillai says he should have taken action sooner to fix problems in the neighbourhood around the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter.

“This is on me; I will take on the role with full integrity and say that four months ago, I should have done this,” Pillai said in the legislature, responding to questions from Yukon Party MLA Brad Cathers.

Attention has been focused on this issue for over a week now after the owners of the Alpine Bakery announced they would be closing their doors tomorrow – at this point temporarily – in response to noise, vandalism, public intoxication and other problems in the area.

“It’s finally now that a local business has closed his doors and hung a lantern on this issue, that we’re finally seeing the government wake up and take some action,” Yukon Party Leader Currie Dixon said, speaking outside the legislature on Wednesday.

The fall sitting of the legislature began on Wednesday. The Yukon Party has used just about all its time during question period blaming the Liberal government for these issues.

Dixon attributed problems at the shelter to the 2019 change making it a “low-barrier” facility where people aren’t turned away for being under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

“The results have been a disaster: property damage, vandalism, harassment, open drug and alcohol use, and general crime and illegal behaviour had become the norm in the core of Whitehorse,” Dixon said.

He wants this low-barrier model to change at the Alexander Street shelter. He also wants a decentralization of services, with places such as safe consumption sites located in a different part of the city than the shelter.

Pillai said all possibilities for altering services at the shelter are on the table, as well as moving other services out of the area.

He said he has also met with the Council of Yukon First Nations (CYFN) about creating a community patrol program the CYFN would oversee for Whitehorse’s downtown core.

Details still need to be worked out, but Pillai said it would focus on de-escalating situations. The RCMP would still be called when needed.

This service is something he said could be in place as early as the end of the month.

He said the next step is meeting with several stakeholders, including Connective, the contractor running the facility, the CYFN, the City of Whitehorse and the local RCMP detachment.

So far, the only major changes have been the removal of the benches used for congregating out front of the shelter.

Pillai said this was pre-planned before the closure announcement – though he still pointed to it as evidence the government is taking action.

He said that many of the current problems are caused by people gathering outside the shelter, and these are not necessarily the people staying there.

“There has been a culture of gathering and partying and really inappropriate behaviour,” Pillai said of the scene out front of the shelter.

The premier also reminded the opposition that the shelter is working to help some of the Yukon’s most vulnerable people.

“Inside the shelter, there has been good work done,” Pillai said.

Defending the low-barrier service model, Pillai said it’s easy when the problems are out of sight and people don’t see them when driving by, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bad things happening.

“The reason that the service model changed was because there was really negative things happening,” Pillai said.

“They may not have been happening outside the building, but they were happening to the clients inside the building.”

Cathers’ response to this was to quote a study from earlier this year that he said had found over a third of residents’ substance use went up during their stay at the shelter after the change to a low-barrier model.

Others, such as NDP MLA Lane Tredger, said these policies are in place to support people, and to avoid kicking them out into the street.

“When we’re talking about the people at the shelter, these are some incredibly vulnerable Yukoners, many of whom have experienced lifetimes of trauma and discrimination,” Tredger said, speaking to reporters outside the legislature.

“They need support; they don’t need to be thrown back out on the street.”

Tredger pointed to the building design and location as a big part of the problem, saying the lot – a former vehicle dealership – was poorly chosen, with no outdoor space and little community consultation.

The building site was chosen by a Yukon Party government, with construction beginning in 2015 and the facility opening in 2017.

Though the Yukon Party was in charge when the site was built, Dixon contended the problems only began once the Liberals changed the model of the shelter.

“The operating model that used to be in place was that it was more restrictive with a higher barrier and you weren’t allowed to be drunk or high to access the services,” Dixon said. “That changed with the government change.”

Speaking to the media outside the legislature, Pillai made the point that part of the issue is that the homelessness problem in Whitehorse was once “out of sight, out of mind” when people experiencing homelessness used to congregate near the Yukon River.

Since the construction of this shelter, those people are getting services in the centre of the city.

“Now we’re in a position where those vulnerable folks are front and centre,” he said. “And we see those individuals, many of them that are hurting immensely, right in front of us every day.”

“We have to support those folks.”