Residents question security plans for Victoria injection sites

Neighbours, students and business operators filled Victoria's city council chambers Thursday evening for the final public meeting about three proposed supervised injection sites in the downtown area.

While many expressed support for the service, there were also questions and concerns about the locations, particularly the placement of two services within two blocks of each other.

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Ron Jessup, who lives close to the proposed "closed" site for residents of the 844 Johnson Street supported housing facility, said he has questions about safety for other residents living near the injection services.

"I am noticing increased loitering, increased noise levels as well," Jessup said.

"Both the police and ambulance emergency services frequent that location quite a bit and they haven't done an efficient job in my mind of reducing that or managing it effectively."

North Park neighbourhood resident Anne Moon lives "400 steps" from one of the proposed sites — she counted them.

Moon said she is supporting the supervised consumption sites "measuredly" though she is not convinced of the need for two sites in one neighbourhood..

"I want to find out that there's some kind of continuum of care for people, that it's not just about sticking a needle in your arm and surviving," Moon said.

"But it's also about possibly the vague introduction to some other services that can make life a little less harrowing."

Moon said supervised injection sites are just one of several issues the neighbourhood is dealing with.

"We already have lots of neighbourhood issues. Right now, I think we're more bothered by the marijuana outlets. We have nine in the neighbourhood with all sorts of chaos and inconvenience."

Nathan Cartwright described himself as a concerned longstanding resident who supports supervised consumption sites.

"It's really important for that community that base level of safety is provided for everyone, so further work and normalization can happen," he said.

"I worked in kitchens where there were needles all over the ground when we went to take out garbage," he said.

"The best way to deal with that is to make a decent place where people can safely inject their drugs and dispose of their needles, instead of in back alleys or dying alone in stairways and apartment buildings."

Emily Staniland lives within a block of two of the proposed supervised consumption sites, "so it's about to become part of my community and I wanted to know a little bit more."

"My interest and my concern is how they're going to integrate it with the community," Staniland said.  

"I already think it's a good idea. Now, I just want to know a little bit more detail about how they're going to ensure this becomes a valuable part of the community, not just for the clients that it serves but for all of us who live in the area."

"Are we going to get increased lighting and are we going to have community programs or a community advisory board?"

Staniland said she did not get answers to those questions, yet. 

"Stuff like that is probably going to be another step or two down the line."

Lakeshia Jackson said she talked about supervised consumption services in her Criminal Justice program at Camosun College but wanted to hear how other people felt about it at the public meeting.

Jackson and friend Ryan Fletcher said they were struck by some of the negative comments written on flip charts provided by the organizers.

"People aren't really understanding the good of it," Jackson said.