Prince George has one of the highest overdose death rates in B.C. It just lost a supervised consumption site

One of the few overdose prevention sites in northern B.C. has closed its doors, prompting its executive director to call for changes to the way harm reduction is funded in the province.

The POUNDS Project, a non-profit group based in Prince George, is run primarily by peer support workers who have experience with addiction. It has been operating its drop-in supervised consumption site downtown "on a shoestring" over the past five years, according to executive director Jordan Stewart.

Initially opened in 2018 with a grant from the province, POUNDS announced its closure on social media, saying it hopes the closure is temporary as its leadership works out a more sustainable funding model.

"It is soul-crushing to think about the fact that there might be people that die of an overdose in the time that POUNDS is closed," Stewart said.  

"But the reality is that if we don't take this time to build the organization up, this temporary closure would eventually just have become a permanent closure."

Stewart said that there needs to be a recognition that non-profits like POUNDS provide a community service amid a worsening toxic drug crisis, and need to be funded appropriately.

City hard hit by crisis

Prince George has been one of the cities hardest hit by B.C.'s toxic drug crisis, regularly recording some of the highest death rates per capita in the province. In 2022, 87 people died of toxic unregulated drugs, an average of one person every four days.

POUNDS' aim was to supplement the sole overdose prevention site run by Northern Health, a location that is only open from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. six days a week, with closures on Sunday.

The health authority also operates a mobile service from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The drop-in centre run by POUNDS only closed on Mondays, and also ran from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. in the evenings. 

Northern Health said in a statement that they do not provide ongoing operational costs to other projects.

In an email, B.C.'s Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions touted its hundreds of millions in annual spending on substance use services, adding "government knows there is much more to do, and is committed to investing in harm reduction and treatment and recovery services."

But Stewart says what's really needed is more information about how that funding is being used and a prioritization of on-the-ground services working to save lives.

She spoke to CBC News about the problems her organization has faced and the challenges facing other similar programs.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What led to the decision to temporarily shutter the POUNDS Project? 

POUNDS was founded with a Crisis Innovation Grant which was created by the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction specifically to address the overdose crisis. The purpose of these grants was to implement innovative responses to the overdose crisis quickly. They were meant to be pilot projects, with the hope that the communities would value them, and develop sustainability if they were able to show a positive impact. 

So, the way we are currently set up is really reliant on sacrifices by our staff and clients. But, it ultimately comes at the expense of exploiting people's personal passion and sense of justice.

Personally, I'm very uncomfortable with making the decision to take dollars awarded to our organization and spend them on things like staff salary when I know that there aren't enough hours of service available for people who use drugs, or people who are homeless in Prince George. And there are many, many people in this sector that I know feel the same way.

But, as long as we continue to [work without sufficient funding], the system will allow it.

In your opinion, what needs to change to prevent future closures, and reform the system that you say led to this one? 

The power is held by decision makers that hold the money, and the "doers" of the work are impacted by those decisions but have no power at those tables. 

Ultimately, this is all public money, and so I think that the public and the organizations doing the work have a right to know what services receive how much money. I think that would go a long way to establishing a more equitable landscape for this work to occur.

People died preventable deaths, and the cost of preventing those deaths is incredibly low. If the whole community could appreciate that, it becomes very easy to see that harm reduction and overdose prevention services are not some radical act. This is a really basic social service that has a super low cost to society and prevents a huge number of other costs down the line. 

Providing a free, unused syringe to someone costs a fraction of a penny. One night in the ICU for a sepsis infection caused by re-using a needle can cost the government over $10,000. People's lives are being saved in the ICU, and so if we can prevent people from getting there and overwhelming that really essential resource, why is that not the top priority for policymakers?

How do you find that common ground and unite around those shared goals when the conversation about harm reduction is so politicized? 

You don't need to understand addiction or have compassion for people who use substances to be able to see the value to the community of a safe inhalation site.

People are going to use drugs for as long as people drink alcohol, and we have created appropriate avenues for one of those things to occur, but not for the other.

The issue doesn't need to be humanized because if saving lives from overdoses isn't where your motivation lies, that's ultimately OK. And, probably what we say is a harm reduction organization isn't going to change that. 

But at the very core of it, there are common pieces, and that's what we need to latch on to as a community, as a society. Part of that is understanding that these grassroots, community-based, action oriented, non-profit groups require sustainable funding for the well-being of the entire community. It is not just that we are asking for more money for people who use drugs, we are asking for an essential community service to be adequately supported.