'Just checking on you, man': Edmonton police HELP team takes aim at recovery

At the corner of 101 Street and 106 Avenue on an autumn Tuesday morning, a man moves from a bob-and-weave slow-motion one-man waltz to a crouching nap while another man sits nearby, resolutely trying to avoid him.

‘Larry’ is “tweaking” on meth, and coming down on heroin, after sleepless days and nights. In one hand he fumbles with a Narcan pen, as though making his hands meet a puzzle.

A passing team from Edmonton’s Human-centered Engagement and Liaison Partnership (HELP) sees him weaving close to another man who was sitting down. Edmonton police Const. Kaleigh Nixon and navigator Kevin Austin pull over.

Larry doesn’t know it yet, but an intervention is underway that just could be the first day of the rest of his recovery life.

In July 2026, in its sixth year, the dual-agency project HELP took a decidedly optimistic turn.

With the province’s Alberta Recovery Model in sight, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) works specifically with the George Spady Centre, Hope Mission, wihcihaw maskokamik Society of Enoch Cree Nation, and Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society.

Larry is the most recent of over 600 interactions since the July 2026 shift to proactive “call response and field engagement.”

Contracted navigators from local social service agencies ride in tandem with members of the EPS to connect people like Larry to supports.

Today he will hear from more than one helper about detox and a future thereafter.

A friendly, low-key conversation starts.

“Do you need that?” they want to know, pointing to the Narcan pen designed to pull an overdosing individual out of danger.

“No.”

“How are you?”

“Why?”

“It’s okay. There’s no judgment. Did you need anything? We’re just checking on you, man. We saw you sitting earlier.”

He volunteers a bit about his current high.

“I’m floating.”

Their demeanour’s non-confrontative, affable.

Austin admires a figurine, Larry’s most prized possession.

“That’s awesome. That’s cool,” Austin said.

Then, “Can I be real with you? When we first saw you, you were dancing around on the corner. And I think you got some pretty sick dances, but that’s a little a little nervous thing for us, right? We don’t want you to fall in traffic. And since we’ve been chatting, we’ve noticed several different variations of you,” Austin said.

“Yeah,” the man responds.

Larry requires stabilization to the Integrated Stabilization Centre (ISC), converted cells in the basement of the downtown police headquarters. There he will sober up, get treated medically, fed and rested and watched.

He’s “arrested” under 1152 of the AGLC Act for public intoxication, but it’s more like a diversion or intervention.

Small moments of counsel start.

“I want you to know that this is a good place. It’s a little different than the (DMU, detainee management unit),” Austin said.

“So they’re going to offer resources there. We’ll have a quicker way to get you into detox.”

Cuffed for safety, Larry’s belted into the crew cab for a ride of a few blocks.

Since opening on August 28, the Integrated Stabilization Centre (ISC) has admitted 195 subjects. Of those, 18 admissions involved a referral or transportation arrangement to the Alberta Recovery Centre.

At the ISC, they get Larry patted down. His outer layers removed, his clothing and personal items stowed in clear bags, secured; any drug substances would be tossed, but Larry doesn’t have any of those on hand.

Larry answers the nurse’s kindly questions with some lucidity as she takes his vital signs, but he’s drowsy.

He knows his name and birthday. He guesses that this month is July.

He knows approximately when and how much drugs he took, but not when he’d slept last.

He knows he takes medicine for stomach woes, he’s overdosed in the past, but not recently.

He’s been diagnosed with mental illness of some sort, but he isn’t currently hallucinating, and has no desire to hurt himself or others.

(They take away the lace of his joggers just to be safe.)

As the HELP team returns to the streets, Const. Nixon plants a seed in hopes that recovery options might ring a bell for Larry once he sobers up.

“They might ask you about detox. Consider it while you’re here, okay? Because maybe a change is important,” she says.

In the cell, he’ll be monitored by walkarounds and a camera.

Then the team’s back in the truck, looking for the next prospect.

“We try to have a very calm approach with them. Kind of discuss what’s going on with them in the moment. Some people are very direct.”

An assessment that the person’s unable to care for themselves means the ISC or the detainee management unit (DMU).

There’s shelters, but they can’t deal with prospects who are high, intoxicated, erratic, or violent.

Austin steps in on the resource side. A bag lunch? warm clothes? Transport?

The HELP team looks for problems and ways to solve them.

“There’s always an answer, in my mind. There’s always a solution,” says Austin.

If they say, “I’ve been drinking every day for the last year,” they’ll hear about the detoxes.

If they don’t want that, maybe the Navigation Centre’s the next stop. And they may hear about it there, too.

The truck’s a familiar, almost cheering sight for many, more about help than enforcement.

Nixon said she wants to put a kink in Larry’s plans to return to the chaos of a drugged life on the street. Detox is the goal.

“And maybe if they did go to detox and then went back onto the street, which happens regularly, then we’re interacting again. I think it takes most people eight or nine times.”

If additional charges are needed to be laid, or if they had warrants to clean up, or records of violent offences, they’d redirect to the DMU.

In other cases, sometimes Nixon can release them on appearance notices and reissue a court date, and then they can still go to the ISC.

“Sometimes the reason that they are not going to court is because of their addictions and mental health,” she said.

EPS St. Sgt. Renee Martynuik oversees HELP teams.

“Our city has changed a lot, and as police, we’re often asked to do many different things that aren’t necessarily police duties,” Martynuik said.

“By collaborating with agencies that are inside our community, we’re able to address root cause issues, but as police, we’re still able to stay in our lane and attend calls for service and deal with community safety issues.”

What prompted the shift in priorities was a significant increase in concern for public safety due to disordered spaces, Martynuik said.

“The police response to that was that we need to take care of our disordered spaces by upholding our legal, our abilities to uphold the law, while making sure that we’re addressing the root causes of crime by working with our people in partnership,” she said.

“It used to be people waving us off because they were left to be comfortable in those disordered spaces and supported in their addiction in the community. There’s more of an expectation that people are going to change their behavior to collaborate with public safety or go into a recovery type of approach.

“We also know that we can’t do it alone, and that we have to work with partners that understand the scope and the depth of the addictions out there, and how to connect them to the right resources to get them out of the cycle because we can’t we can’t stay the way we are.”

Bookmark our website and support our journalism:Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.

You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.