Toronto shelters with on-site drug consumption sites near schools and daycares affected by Ontario ban: Province

An upcoming law that will force the closure of supervised drug use sites near schools and daycare centers will also affect sites in Toronto's homeless shelters, the province confirmed to CBC News.

Last week, Premier Doug Ford's government announced it would ban supervised consumption sites – where people can inject, snort or otherwise ingest drugs under supervision to reduce the risk of overdose – within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres. In total, 10 facilities across the province will be forced to cease these services by the end of March 2025. Five of them are in Toronto.

Although no homeless shelters were included on the list, a spokesperson for the province's Ministry of Health told CBC Toronto that locations within homeless shelters would also need to be closed.

“If they offer drug consumption and are within 200 meters of a school or daycare, they will be affected by our bill if it passes,” Alexandra Adamo, chief of staff to Health Minister Sylvia Jones, wrote in an email.

WATCH | Critics call ban on supervised drug consumption sites near schools a ‘death sentence’:

Critics call Ontario's ban on supervised drug consumption sites near schools a “death sentence”

The province's new rules will result in more than half of Ontario's supervised injection sites either being converted to treatment centres or being closed – a move that Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, said is “a death sentence for people who use substances.”

There are currently four shelters in the city that offer supervised consumption. The facilities, called Urgent Public Health Needs Sites (UPHNS), are only accessible to shelter residents and do not accept walk-ins from the public.

At least two of them – Homes First's Bathurst-Lakeshore site on the harbour and Seaton House in Moss Park – have schools or daycare within 200 metres, according to a CBC Toronto analysis using Google Maps. A third site in Liberty Village appears to have neither a school nor daycare within 200 metres.

CBC Toronto could not determine whether the fourth site – a COVID-19 recovery and isolation facility for homeless people in Etobicoke – would be affected because the city did not provide an exact address.

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Mark Potvin, client services manager at Homes First, said he was concerned for shelter residents because supervised consumption sites would prevent fatal overdoses.

“If we don't have a safe or supervised place of consumption, the number of people dying in shelters will increase because consumption will increase and become more hidden,” he said.

“They're consuming it in the toilets, in the hallways, and part of the concern is that people will overdose and then there will be no help to save their lives.”

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Ontario is introducing new rules for supervised drug use sites, including banning any sites within 200 metres of schools or childcare centres. This comes more than a year after a woman was killed by a ricochet bullet outside a Leslieville Community Health Centre. As CBC's Dale Manucdoc reports, some residents in the area have called for the change.

Potvin said about 50 residents use the supervised consumption site at Homes First's Harbourfront location each month and no one has died there. That's because when drug users show signs of overdose, staff help them with oxygen and the fast-acting drug naloxone, he said.

“It will also have a profound impact and will be a loss for the clients in the homeless shelter who have lost their friends,” he said.

“The level of grief that results from this actually has a negative impact on mental health and addictions.”

The shelters opened in late 2020 in response to a spike in overdose deaths resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, when access to harm reduction services was limited due to social distancing and curfews.

Toronto recorded 1,496 non-fatal and 70 fatal overdoses in its emergency shelter system in 2021, up from 316 and 11, respectively, in 2018. Those numbers dropped to 796 and 43, respectively, last year.

“UPHNS was created to enable shelter residents to use drugs under trained supervision – rather than in parks or other areas – to prevent fatal overdoses and save lives,” spokeswoman Elise von Scheel said in an email.

The sites also offer clean needles and safe needle disposal, she said.

“City of Toronto staff continues to work to understand the extent of the changes to determine how they will be implemented and what impact they may have on programs in the homeless shelter system,” said von Scheel.

The province instead finances treatment and rehabilitation centers

In announcing and defending the ban, Ford and Jones argued that it was inappropriate to build the centers in neighborhoods with schools and daycare centers, citing complaints from residents about syringes found on the ground and crimes being committed near the centers.

The province also announced it would invest $378 million in 19 new homeless and addiction treatment (HART) centres. Supervised consumption centres that are facing closure will be given the opportunity to be converted into a treatment centre.

But critics and organizations that work with drug users say the decision ignores evidence showing that these centers reduce overdose deaths, prevent the transmission of infectious diseases and provide a path to addiction treatment.

“Harm reduction … not only keeps everyone safe, including the community and also schools, parks and child care facilities, but it also preserves people's lives so we can help them get treatment … and escape homelessness,” Potvin said.

Chris Moise, a Toronto city councillor, chair of the city's health committee and former addiction counsellor, expresses hope that this will lead the province to reverse its decision regarding these drug consumption sites.

“People will continue to consume. And they will consume it in our parks, alleys and schoolyards,” he said. “Consumption sites are where they are now because there was a need for them in that location.”