Hamilton's safe drug use site to close in 2025 under new Ontario plan. Here are the concerns and hopes
Downtown site is run by Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre
Hamilton's only safe drug consumption site will close, along with nine others in Ontario, if they don't transition to a new hub model by March 31, 2025.
The move by the provincial government that was announced Tuesday is prompting fears by local addiction services providers and community representatives for the lives of those who use the site — and some hope the new model could be helpful.
Without the current Hamilton site, "I'm really concerned about what will happen," Medora Uppal, who leads the nearby YWCA, told CBC Hamilton following the announcement.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said Tuesday the province is banning the operation of such centres within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres. That will affect five sites in Toronto, and along with the Hamilton site, one each in Guelph, Kitchener, Ottawa and Thunder Bay.
The province said instead it will invest $378 million in 19 new hubs focused on homelessness and addiction recovery treatment.
The downtown Hamilton site is run by the Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre, which operates within St. Paul's Presbyterian Church at 70 James St. S. CBC Hamilton reached out to the health centre for comment, but did not receive a response before publication.
City Coun. Cameron Kroetsch, who represents the Ward 2 neighbourhood that site is in, called the move "alarming."
"We need more safe supports, not fewer," he wrote on social media. "Without these spaces, people will be forced to use drugs in public, and without a safe supply, more of our neighbours will die."
On Tuesday, Jones refuted concerns that closing such sites will result in deaths if they are not around to prevent overdoses. "People are not going to die," she said. "They are going to get access to service."
Hub model 'will hopefully help': mayor
Mayor Andrea Horwath told CBC Hamilton she was surprised by the change affecting the Hamilton site. The city refers to it as consumption and treatment services (CTS), where people consume "pre-obtained drugs in a safe, hygienic environment under the supervision of trained and authorized harm reduction staff."
Horwath and other municipal leaders have long called on the province to do more when it comes to homelessness and addiction.
"The remainder of the announcement that the government made is an acknowledgment that they needed to step up and do more to partner with cities to tackle the crisis that we have," she said.
"If that hub model can be implemented quickly and if it can be robustly funded, it will hopefully help us save some lives and reduce the crisis that our city faces and that other cities face as well."
Kroetsch said that if the provincial government wants to relocate supervised consumption sites, "it should pick up the tab" and help with a transition plan.
Province encourages sites to transition
The province has said the sites that will fall under the ban must close by March 31, but they're encouraged to apply to transition to be new treatment hubs, which would make them eligible, on average, "for up to four times more funding … than they receive from the province as a consumption site."
"Continuing to enable people to use drugs is not a pathway to treatment," Jones said in a news conference Tuesday, adding her planned hubs would not include CTS sites and the province won't fund any new CTS sites to replace those that close.
In a news release, the province said it made this change in part to protect the safety of children and families. It said crime near supervised consumption sites is high and that in Hamilton, reports of violent crime were 195 per cent higher compared to the rest of the city.
CBC Hamilton asked the city's police where that statistic may have come from and whether police believe there is a causal link between crime and these safe drug consumption sites.
Spokesperson Jackie Penman said in an email that police shared raw crime data with the Ministry of the Solicitor General last week, but the province would have to speak to how it interpreted the data.
According to Google Maps, the Hamilton site is within 200 metres of at least one child-care centre, run by the YWCA Hamilton.
Uppal, the YWCA executive director, told CBC Hamilton the consumption sites "don't create a problem. They are responding to a problem."
She said the YWCA has had no safety concerns related directly to the CTS at St. Paul's.
People overdosing and dying from drug use is a safety issue, Uppal said, and so is people leaving drug paraphernalia such as needles out in public. But drug use in the community existed before the CTS, she said.
She added that supervised consumption may help people stay alive long enough to benefit from treatment.
CBC Hamilton contacted the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board to confirm whether there are any schools within 200 metres of the CTS and whether the board has had related concerns, but did not receive a response by mid- Wednesday afternoon.
St. Catharines, Ont., has a CTS site run by Positive Living Niagara. It will not have to close under the new rules.
Talia Storm, who manages the CTS and other services at the Niagara organization, said in an email that the decision to close other CTS sites is "devastating and ignores the rampant evidence of the benefits of consumption sites."
"There is no simple solution to the drug poisoning crisis that we are in, so now more than ever we need to keep a continuum of support options available," she told CBC Hamilton.
Horwath said that while she couldn't recall hearing specific concerns related to schools or daycares near the CTS centre, many Hamiltonians have shared safety concerns about the neighbourhood it's in.
"We had a couple of public meetings where community came out with big concerns, not necessarily about that site, but certainly about the homelessness, addictions and mental health crises that we're facing."
The mayor said she wants to talk to Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre about what they can do going forward, and how the city and other organizations can provide support.
Paramedics saw 80 opioid-related incidents a month in 2023
Julie Prieto, director of epidemiology and well-being with Hamilton Public Health Services, said opioid-related poisoning is mostly to blame for a sharp increase in drug-related emergency-department visits, hospital admissions, overdoses and deaths.
According to a city tracker, Hamilton Paramedic Services responded to 450 incidents related to suspected opioid overdoses from Jan. 1 to Aug. 11.
In 2023, Hamilton Paramedic Services responded to 964 incidents, or an average of about 80 per month. In 2022, paramedics responded to about 814 incidents, or 68 per month.
As of April 2024, the city saw 43 deaths that it said were "probable or confirmed to be opioid related."
"Evidence supports a suite of strategies and interventions with a focus on prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement," Prieto said in an email, adding housing and treatment have long needed investment.
Prieto said harm reduction services, which include CTS, are proven to reduce overdose deaths.
Linking to a literature review, the city website states benefits of CTS sites include reducing overdoses and the spread of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C among people who inject drugs, connecting drug users to supports and preventing drug use in public spaces.
"There can't only be a focus on downstream efforts — we need early and deep preventive strategies that result in stable housing, adequate income, healthy child development and prevent trauma," she said.
Public health will continue to work with communities and people with lived experience to offer harm reduction, including distributing naloxone and safe injection supplies.
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With files from CBC News