Sudbury, Ont., supervised consumption site makes case for provincial funding as it faces closure

Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas says she lost her nephew to a drug overdose.

"His mom is a nurse. He was a good kid who could not gain access to the programs and services to help him, and he's not with us anymore," she said.

"And that happens to many, many families."

Gélinas shared her story at pre-provincial budget consultations in Sudbury, Ont., on Tuesday.

Réseau ACCESS Network, which operates the supervised consumption site in the city, is one of 19 organizations requesting funding from the provincial government's next budget.

At the end of 2023, temporary funding from the city ran out, and the organization has relied on donations from the private sector and anonymous donors to keep running.

Amber Fritz, the supervised consumption site's manager, told the province's standing committee on finance and economic affairs that they've been waiting more than two years to get a response on their funding request from the province.

Fritz said $1.4 million from the province would fund the site for the next year.

"Our site is set to close," she said.

"We've been operating since Sept. 28, 2022. We've been getting busier and busier every single month. If you look at the month of January up until yesterday, we have supported 376 consumptions and 302 visits in 29 days."

Fritz said that in 2022, 112 people died of opioid overdoses in the district of Sudbury and Manitoulin.

She said those deaths are preventable, though, if people can use drugs in a safe space under the supervision of health-care professionals.

Fritz said the site has reversed 24 overdoses so far, without requiring intervention from emergency medical services.

"It is a place of dignity. It is a place where people do not have to consume drugs behind dumpsters and in alleyways, in the freezing cold," she said.

"We know that people are going to use drugs regardless. People always have and people always will. So why not support people to have the dignity that they deserve?"

Feeding children

Sudbury Better Beginnings Better Futures also requested additional funding from the province in the next budget.

The organization runs student nutrition programs at 90 schools in the Sudbury-Manitoulin district.

"Many programs are at risk of not being able to offer food to their students for the entire school year," said Angele Young, regional manager for student nutrition in Sudbury-Manitoulin.

Young said the programs feed 19,000 children in the region every day., and demand has doubled since 2019.

"We are currently serving just shy of three million meals per year," she said.

Young said each meal costs about 40 cents, but that's because schools are "stretching their dollars" and cutting back on the quality of the food or the number of meals.

"We know that a breakfast program, which is three food groups, is actually $2.25 [per meal]."

For the first time in her 25-year career, Young said schools are already telling her they've run out of money for their nutrition programs.

Young said Better Beginnings Better Futures receives $750,000 annually from the province to cover its nutrition programs. About $250,000 covers administration, staffing and transportation, and $500,000 is for food.

She said an additional $500,000 each year would allow them to meet the participating schools' needs.

The province has been holding consultation sessions across Ontario ahead of the 2024 budget.

Other organizations that participated in Tuesday's consultations included the City of Greater Sudbury, Science North, the YMCA of Northeastern Ontario and the Capreol Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic.