Safepoint to 'pause' operations due to lack of funding from province
Province says it's not funding new sites until a review is complete
Though it's only been open for several months, SafePoint — Windsor's first and only supervised drug consumption and treatment site — will be closing its doors until the provincial government agrees to fund it, the board of health decided Monday.
At a budget meeting, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) board of health unanimously agreed to pause operations as of Dec. 31.That decision was made as the number of people who have died from an opioid overdose continues to increase in Windsor-Essex.
"I think that not having the site open is a loss for our community," said WECHU board of health chair Fabio Costante.
"I'm concerned in the midst of a crisis that we're under, that we would be closing it."
In an email to CBC News, Minister of Health spokesperson Hannah Jensen said that these sites are "expected to build trust in the communities where they are located through consultation and ongoing engagement, and we understand the importance of community feedback in this matter."
Input from the community following a shooting that killed a woman near Toronto's Riverdale CTS site in July, prompted the ministry to do a review, Jensen said.
The province announced its review in August and said that would put the applications for all new CTS sites on pause.
"These reviews will inform the next steps taken by the Ministry of Health," Jensen said.
WECHU CEO Ken Blanchette says there is concern that SafePoint won't reopen at all.
"We are following their pause and we are hopeful that the province investigation is quicker, rather than a lengthy process," he said.
"Our hope is really to have fully approved reopening to the site."
WECHU couldn't say how much the health unit has spent on operating SafePoint until now. But it has previously said that it costs about $700,000 to operate per year.
When asked why the health unit isn't going to ask the city and county for more money, or other community partners, Blanchette said that is hard to do as everyone is "under financial pressures" right now.
"We've had conversations about how to be able to do that, but there's also limitations as to how to operate the site as well, part of our application there is strict guidelines on how to operate," he said.
To keep funding the site, Costante says, would mean the health unit would have to use its base budget and reduce some of the services it currently offers. Alternatively, if WECHU were to ask for more from the municipalities, that would mean taxpayers would be covering something that is "squarely and within the purview of the province."
WECHU says that since opening, each month SafePoint has seen an increasing number of visits. In May, SafePoint reported 64 visits and now, in October, it had 258.
In total, 182 people have used the site to date.
Opioid deaths continue to increase
The latest data from Public Health Ontario shows that in Windsor-Essex, the number of people dying from opioid use continues to rise.
In 2022, there were 112 people that died from opioids — that's an increase of 27 deaths from 2021.
Angus, 48, lives in Kingsville and he had used substances, particularly cocaine and opioids, for more than 20 years. Just last week, he celebrated one year of being sober.
CBC News has agreed to not use his last name or face as he worries about getting a job or home in the future.
Though Angus had never used SafePoint, he has gone to see the site and asked questions about it.
"I'm disappointed. I think it's a big mistake," Angus said in reaction to the news that SafePoint's operations would be paused.
"If you want to put it simply, they are basically putting a price on people's lives."
He says that without the space, people will be forced to use unsafely in the city and likely be using alone, without supervision.
"The thing about the safe injection site was there was resources there for treatment, so these people could maybe work on their addiction someday," he said. "Unfortunately, these people are the bottom of society and [if] we continue to treat them like that, nothing's going to change."
WATCH: Michael Brennan on the impending closure of SafePoint
Michael Brennan is the executive director of Pozitive Pathways, one of the groups on the stakeholders committee for SafePoint.
He says that SafePoint had been working to build relationships in a community where there's not a lot of trust in health care, and closing it will have repercussions.
"The number of people visiting the site has been increasing every month. So as winter arrives, I have some serious concerns of how that's going to impact where people are going to go," he said.
After expressing condolences to the family of the person killed in Toronto, Brennan said that it was "extremely punitive" for the province to put all site applications on pause because of what happened near one site.
He says that years before this review was announced, the current provincial government had already made big changes to the CTS approval process, which included safety measures.
"I think it's just ironic that they potentially could have a lack of faith in the model that they implemented," he said.
Site took 7 years to open
It took seven years for the site to become a reality in downtown Windsor, at the corner of Wyandotte Street East and Goyeau Street, due to hurdles fuelled by political red tape and community pushback.
SafePoint opened in April under Health Canada approval as an urgent public health needs site. It was funded primarily through the health unit's budget while awaiting provincial approval.
The board submitted an application for provincial funding for the site prior to opening, in July 2022.