Kensington Market split over drug consumption site's future
Ontario shutting down several supervised consumption sites as it shifts to new approach to overdose crisis
Patrick Chisholm has visited the drop-in centre at St. Stephen's Community House in Kensington Market for the past 10 years.
Every few weeks, he sits in a blue chair at the same desk inside its supervised consumption site to inject illicit drugs.
Soon, he'll have to find another place to use, where there may not be anyone present to revive him if he overdoses.
"If they close these sites down, they're gonna have piles of bodies all over the place," Chisholm said.
The Ontario government is planning legislation that will shutter at least five Toronto supervised drug consumption sites by March 2025 because they are located within 200 metres of schools or daycares. That legislation would also prohibit new ones from opening, as the Ford government shifts its approach to the drug overdose crisis toward a model it says focuses on treatment, recovery and community safety.
The plan has set off fierce debate between those who see the sites as life-saving spaces and others who say they have made their neighbourhoods unsafe.
In the middle of Kensington Market — an eclectic downtown Toronto neighbourhood that's popular with residents and tourists alike — the debate plays out on the streets.
Life-saving vs. unsafe
The Neighbourhood Group uses community donations to run the Kensington site, which operates six days a week, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Around 700 people are registered to use the service.
People inject drugs there under the supervision of staff trained to treat them with oxygen or naloxone if they overdose. Staff also distribute clean syringes and other harm reduction supplies. It doesn't offer a safe supply program.
People who use the site and staff who work there tell CBC Toronto that it keeps them alive — offering people a pathway to treatment and preventing disease transmission.
But some who live and work in Kensington Market say it has increased public drug use and discarded needles in their community, as well as the number of people in distress in close proximity to children.
Some parents, business owners criticize site
On a recent September afternoon, Stefan Baranski dropped his four-year-old son off at a private school that runs one of the two daycares within a 200-metre radius of the Kensington supervised consumption site.
Baranski said he's seen people using drugs while students are walking to school in the morning, and he's concerned by multiple incidents in which people have walked by the school without clothing.
"It's pretty sad that it ever got to the stage where we had open drug use within literally eyesight of schools," Baranski said. "The province is absolutely on the right track."
The problems associated with the safe consumption site extend down the street to Bellevue Square Park, said Pete Storms, while pushing his son to daycare in a stroller.
Storms said a children's playground in the park often goes unused because of a homeless encampment where police are a frequent presence.
"You can find a spot. Let's just be logical about where to put it," he said. "I think what's going to happen is there's a slow build-up with parents and residents."
At a certain point, Storms said, there's a "threshold where you're going to see a mass exodus."
While carrying his twins to a nearby daycare, William Luong said it's better to control drug use than to allow it to happen uncontrolled all over the city.
"Otherwise, people are going to go around and who knows what they're going to do," he said.
Frequent overdoses in neighbourhood, data shows
The site first opened in 2018, after the city identified Kensington Market as a hotspot for overdoses — there were 46 calls to paramedics for suspected overdoses in the eight months leading up to its opening.
Kensington remains home to frequent overdoses.
While the frequency of overdose calls has since increased alongside the toxicity of the illicit drug supply — there were 220 paramedic calls in the Kensington-Chinatown area in July 2024, according to city data — no one has died inside the supervised consumption site since it opened.
Staff and community members rallied in support of the site on Sept. 13. Rallygoers spilled onto Augusta Avenue, holding signs and chanting "we save lives." During the rally, a man who's owned a business in the area for 25 years approached CBC Toronto to express his opposition.
The man, who asked not to be identified for fear he could be targeted for his views, said he's considering packing up shop because of how the neighbourhood has changed since the site opened
He said he's seen public defecation, people being high in public and constant overdoses.
"It's been an absolute nightmare," he said.
"This block has always had the potential to be a thriving entity for businesses, and I've seen so many people come and go."
Province funding recovery treatment centres instead
Similar problems are being grappled with across Canada, as the country tackles a toxic drug supply that saw opioid-related deaths double in Canada between 2019 and 2021. While many experts say harm reduction policies have been key to keeping people alive, there is an ongoing backlash against them.
In Ontario, the province's new addictions plan involves opening 19 homelessness and addiction recovery treatment (HART) Hubs, backed by more than $300 million in funding.
HART Hubs will not offer safe supply, supervised drug consumption or needle exchange programs. Instead, the government says, they will offer other forms of support such as supportive housing, employment help and addiction care.
People who use drugs and health-care experts say while funding for treatment is welcome and long overdue — there still needs to be spaces where people can use drugs so they can stay alive long enough to access recovery.
Some, like Jennifer Haier, a 51-year-old client and peer support worker at the Kensington site, say if it weren't for access to harm reduction services, they'd be dead or in jail.
"They're going to find needles now on that daycare playground, because where are they going to use? Outside," said Haier.
"You're going to see people overdosing just on the corner, they're using in the bathrooms that lock there, so you can't get saved," she said.
Chisholm said the fact that he's had to revive four of his friends who overdosed right outside the site — one of whom later died — shows it should be open longer, not shut down.
"These places are needed — not wanted, needed," he said.
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With files from The Canadian Press