Louis Street residents unhappy with unauthorized overdose prevention site

A community group that has worked at keeping its downtown Sudbury neighbourhood safe says a nearby pop-up supervised injection site is attracting more drug users into their backyards.

A group calling itself the Sudbury Temporary Overdose Prevention Society, or STOP Society, set up two tents off Louis Street where volunteers could monitor drug users while they inject drugs for the last two Friday afternoons.

The site is located on city-owned land at the end of a trail that runs along Junction Creek.

Elizabeth June Davis, an organizer with the Louis Street Community Association, says neighbours aren't pleased with the lack of consultation about the site's location. She says now residents are dealing with the effects.

"They come and they just put out there, their utensils, or whatever they call them, and they get ready to do a fix," Davis said.

"They're already so high that they don't even realize that what they're doing is in front of a bunch of kids and families and they just in the open set themselves up to you know, shoot up."

Davis said several parents are bringing their concerns forward to the community group and to police.

"More and more parents are keeping the kids in the house because it's just so common that, you know, they're just protecting their kids from having to see this."

Davis, who for several years has led a concerted effort to establish a connection between Louis Street residents and Greater Sudbury Police, says since the site was established, they have had to reclaim some ground from the site's visitors.

"We've had to be assertive and bit aggressive and have them removed from the community," Davis said. "It's becoming more and more frequent that this is happening."

"We're having to deal with removing them from the property, so it hasn't been very pleasant at all and we just feel that they need to find somewhere else to go."

A volunteer with the STOP Society says the residents shouldn't be surprised at the presence of drug users.

Kayla is one of the people involved with the pop-up site overdose prevention site. 

She says a large number of drug users frequent that portion of trail between Hnatyshyn Park and Louis Street.

"They have chairs set up. They have little cabins set up in the mountain, and a lot at the end of the trail near Fairview and Elm. They are sitting there all day and constantly using so they're already in the back yard. 

The presence of so many users already in the area is the reason the group chose the site for the overdose prevention site, she says.

Kayla says there were no overdoses at the site itself, but there were four people who had to be revived by outreach workers in the area surrounding the pop-up during the few hours it was operating.

"We are simply there to make sure that they live, and that they're monitored and to try to give them some sort of outreach.....We're not just trying to avoid the issue, we're trying to help make the city a better place for everyone."

Meantime, the City of Greater Sudbury says it has informed the group it is in contravention of the Parks By-law.

In a statement, the city says it understands the importance of harm reduction efforts but it is also important to ensure neighbours and park patrons feel safe.