Harm reduction advocates in Ontario succeeded in winning a court injunction against a new provincial law barring supervised consumption sites from operating within 200 meters of a school or daycare—a requirement that had meant at least 10 of Ontario’s 17 sites faced closure by March 31.
But most of those targeted sites will still shut down.
That’s because while one aspect of the legislation was set aside by the last-minute court decision on March 28—at least temporarily, until a more permanent decision can be made—funding constraints remain in place, according to Toronto harm reduction advocate Zoë Dodd.
“It was great to see the comments from the judge and see how he could recognize that there was irreparable harm going to happen and that people would die,” Dodd, an organizer with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society, told Filter.
Ontario Superior Court Justice John Callaghan accepted in his ruling that the two individual applicants—both people who use supervised consumption sites—would be at risk from losing access.
After the decision was released, Dodd said there were “five minutes of holy shit, we got an injunction,” but that was soon met with a stark reality.
“As a result, both will consume drugs without supervision and, in doing so, will be at greater risk of overdose and death,” Callaghan wrote. “They will also be at greater risk of bloodborne diseases, such as hepatitis C and HIV.”
It’s not yet clear when the matter will come to a full decision, but it could be months or more
After the decision was released, Dodd said there were “five minutes of holy shit, we got an injunction,” but that was soon met with a stark reality.
“It doesn’t save the [sites] who had no funding. Their funding was cut off in August,” she said. “The government really thought of every single loophole to make sure that sites closed.”
Dodd was co-founder of Toronto’s first overdose prevention site—an unsanctioned site in Moss Park offering a space to use drugs safely, which eventually was replaced with a sanctioned site nearby. That site was not under threat of closure, but numerous others in Toronto will either be converted into Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs or close.
Nine sites around Ontario have already converted into HART Hubs (Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment), according to Global News, leaving communities without supervised consumption services.
The operator of one such site in Guelph, a city west of Toronto, told the Wellington Advertiser it “was really hopeful to see that the court has recognized that the closing of SCSs will cause significant harm, including loss of life.”
The injunction has saved two sites for now, however.
But the organization was forced to close its supervised consumption site, as provincial HART Hub funding excludes them.
“It’s really difficult knowing the closure of these services will leave a critical gap in the continuum of care in our community,” Guelph Community Health Centre CEO Melissa Kwiatkowski told the Advertiser.
The injunction has saved two sites for now, however. The Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site, operated by the Neighbourhood Group, was the facility at the center of the legal action, and it will remain open.
The Neighbourhood Group did not respond to Filter’s request for comment, but CEO Bill Sinclair told the CBC it was able to stay open because it isn’t reliant on provincial funding.
“Thousands of people are walking around healthier today because our services were there and we were terrified that there would be people who were going to die because the services were withdrawn,” Sinclair told the CBC.
Another that is staying open is in Hamilton, a city just south of Toronto along the shore of Lake Ontario.
Dodd said that site, operated by the YWCA, is important because it’s one of only two supervised consumption sites in all of Canada that is gender-specific, serving women and gender nonconforming people.
“The fact that that site gets to remain because of the injunction is actually a huge win,” Dodd said. “[It] is actually a really well thought-out site, with beds for people to stabilize and sleep in overnight and a drop-in and food program and showers and laundry, and then also this really nice community vibe.”
She added that’s common for supervised consumption sites in Ontario—they’re often not just about supervising consumption, but offering wrap-around services, including giving space for people to stabilize and access wound care, hepatitis care and more.
“When we were creating the overdose prevention site model out here, that was our goal, to try to embed it in places that had other services, so that people get access to those services,” Dodd said. “So a lot of the sites are co-located within other services.”
Sites that are transitioning to HART Hubs—a move which brings provincial funding—will also no longer be able to offer syringe services or safe supply.
Some of those sites are now transitioning to HART Hubs. While certain services like wound care may still be offered at the hubs, the removal of supervised consumption services means they may no longer be a point of entry for people seeking wound care.
And Dodd said that’s a problem when the current drug supply—in particular, xylazine being sold as “down”—has been known to cause wounds that can become necrotic.
Sites that are transitioning to HART Hubs—a move which brings provincial funding—will also no longer be able to offer syringe services or safe supply.
Regent Park Community Health Centre in Toronto offered both, as a supervised consumption site. Now that it is converting into a HART Hub, it’s no longer allowed to do so, Dodd said.
Instead, HART Hubs will be directing people who use drugs to abstinence-based treatment.
“It’s a huge loss. It’s much bigger than I think people can imagine. And in my opinion organizations should not take HART Hub money. It’s ideologically in opposition to what organizations say they believe,” Dodd said.
“The HART Hub is about abstinence-based treatment models, and yet it doesn’t actually have any treatment attached to it. So it’s an actual disaster.”
Photograph by Ivan Radic via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0
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