A homeless encampment in Prince Albert. (File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Susan McNeil

Solutions

From needle hotspots to encampments, city sharing portal hopes to engage people in solutions

Feb 7, 2025 | 5:00 PM

The City of Prince Albert is using technology and its website to have residents become part of the solution to managing issues ranging from discarded needles, encampments and other risks.

A Community Solutions Forum landing page on the city’s website takes readers through multiple pages of information on issues, what is being done about them and how people can get involved if they want.

“This is a kind of framework for trying to drive community-led and stakeholder-led action to issues that are identified,” said Community and Wellbeing Co-Ordinator Anna Dinsdale.

A group of people meets regularly online to discuss new issues or give updates on existing topics. Anyone can join for the one-hour meetings and if they don’t want to wait that long, can sign up for emailed updates.

“People can raise new issues that they want the group to try and explore solutions to. And at that table what we would then do is OK, how do we set up an action team to focus on that issue that’s been raised?”

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One example raised is collecting used needles and the concentration of them in the downtown core.

The group made sure that the number to call to report needles was made more public and Access Place came and picked up the needles. There is also now an online reporting page for needles where users can also see mapped locations of where they have been picked up.

The screen shot shows the City of Prince Albert’s encampment reporting page. Users can see the number reported and find out their status and report an encampment they may have found.

The interactive map lets users search by neighbourhood and by time frame. There is also a heat map version of locations.

“We recognized that a lot of people were picking up discarded needles and disposing of them properly, but those numbers weren’t being collected centrally,” Dinsdale said.

“We didn’t know the true picture so we have this app online now that allows us to do that.”

A similar page exists for encampment reporting, which shows the number of times bylaw officers were called out. In 2024, that number was 424 but some were undoubtedly the same people moving from one reported spot to another. A point-in-time count done earlier this year is expected to release their numbers next week.

An encampment can be one tent on a sidewalk or a more established location in a less public place. Those are also sorted by neighbourhood. Clicking on the tent icon on the map shows if it has been closed or not when it was reported and when it was dealt with.

READ MORE: The City of Prince Albert calls in service workers when they close encampments

Some of the impetus behind the webpage is a deliberate effort by the City of Prince Albert to be more transparent and accessible to residents.

They are giving out information, not just collecting it.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: @susanmcneil.bsky.social