This downtown building that used to be a liquor store could become the new Complex Needs Emergency Shelter. (Susan McNeil/paNOW Staff)
Addictions spaces

Council hears more details about Complex Needs facility

Jul 22, 2025 | 9:56 AM

More details about how a Complex Needs Emergency facility (CNES) would work were shared with the City of Prince Albert’s council during their regular meeting on Monday.

Essentially, the building would house between 10 and 15 people in a secure facility for the maximum allowed by law on a summary offence: 24 hours.

Right now, the same people are either put in police detention for the same maximum amount of time or left to wander on the streets, posing safety risks to themselves or others.

“I can tell you right now that we’re not achieving anything with our detox arrests,” said Police Chief Patrick Nogier.

Nogier, Deputy Chief Farica Prince and Jamie Ash, with Mental Health and Addictions Saskatchewan, were at the public hearing on an application to change the zoning bylaw to allow the CNES to operate in the old Sask. Liquor Board store downtown.

Some nearby residents were at the meeting to ask questions and air their concerns.

Nogier said that so far in 2025, PA Police officers have made 407 arrests for public intoxication (which includes drug highs) and of those, 333 spent about eight to 10 hours in cells.

The detention sergeant, who is not a medical professional, decides when the person is sober enough to release and they are let out.

“Right now, we open our back door and they’re walking out into your community,” Nogier said, adding that it is only blocks from where the CNES would be.

Many of the people at the meeting and those who wrote letters were worried about what would happen if the facility was added to their neighourhood and asked about release plans.

The police do not provide plans for those released from cells now, so anything extra provided by the CNES is more than is being done now, said Nogier.

Like police cells, only police officers would bring people into the CNES and they would likely stay there for less than 10 hours – the time that two similar facilities in Saskatoon and Regina have noted their inmates/patients stay. Very few people need to stay the maximum 24 hours.

Unlike police cells, the people housed in the CNES see a health care provider and get referrals to other services or rides to family members. Very rarely do they walk out the door on their own.

Ash said the staff will go to great lengths to make sure that people being let out find a place to go where they can get support but there is no 100 per cent guarantee.

Community Development Manager Craig Guidinger said his department asked businesses near the Saskatoon facility if they had noticed any increased issues and were told that they were happy with how quiet it was.

After several hours of discussion, council decided to not adopt third reading at the Monday meeting but moved to have it added to the next Executive Committee meeting on Aug. 11.

Most councillors are in favour of allowing the zoning change and the development permit but exactly how it should work needs some fine-tuning.

Coun. Troy Parenteau said he preferred to have it added as a contract zone so that the contract and the allowed use applies to that facility as it is being proposed now.

Contract zones allow council to reclassify land to a different zoning district for a specific project while excluding the other land uses normally allowed in the new zoning district plus they can specify additional standards. Parenteau also pointed out that when the contract ends, the land would revert to its current zoning, which is commercial.

No operator has been chosen yet, but Coun. Blake Edwards said he was hopeful the same group that runs the CNES facilities in Saskatoon and Regina would apply as he is impressed with their results so far.

Ash said when the province issues the Request for Service proposals, outcomes and accountability are part of the contract for whomever is the successful bidder so the service would essentially be to the same level.

Coun. Dawn Kilmer said something new needs to be tried as the existing approach doesn’t work.

“What we’re doing right now is not working, we are staying in the same spot,” she said. She said ensuring people meet mental health service providers is key to reducing the number of highly intoxicated people or those with some form of psychosis walking in Prince Albert’s streets.

“Every time there’s an intervention, there’s an opportunity,” she said.

The province hopes to have the facility operating in early 2027.

susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: @susanmcneil.bsky.social

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