Nine Ontario supervised consumption facilities located within 200 metres of schools and child care centres have been closed and transformed into addiction resource hubs as part of a provincial push to move away from drug injection sites.
March 31 marked the official deadline for supervised drug injection sites near schools or day care facilities to secure government funding for their shift to the new recovery-based model, the provincial government said in a press release.
The province announced its plan to ban supervised consumption sites near schools and day-care centres last August as part of Bill 223, the Stronger Communities Act. The ban meant 10 of 23 Ontario sites would be closed unless they qualified for government funding and switched to the Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub model laid out by the province.
Nine sites in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Kitchener, Guelph, and Thunder Bay have been approved by the government and became operational as HART Hubs as of April 1, the government said.
The one site not offered government funding— the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site in Toronto—filed a lawsuit in an effort to overturn the legislation and to prolong the closure deadline. The site has not been government-funded since 2019.
It won an injunction from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on March 28, allowing it and any other supervised consumption site near a school or day care to remain open until a final decision is given by the court.
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The Kensington site is the only facility that continues to operate as a drug consumption site.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the government’s decision to close consumption sites near schools and day cares was in response to public outcry about safety issues.
“Communities and families across Ontario have made it clear that drug injection sites near schools and child-care centres make communities unsafe,” Jones said in the press release.
She said the HART Hubs initiative will make communities safer, “while giving those struggling with mental health and addictions challenges hope and the tools they need to break the cycle of addiction.”
Advocates of supervised consumption sites have accused the government of ignoring evidence that such sites are an effective way to prevent overdose death.
Co-Executive Director of the HIV Legal Network Sandra Ka Hon Chu, who has supported the Kensington site’s lawsuit, said the attempt to have the legislation thrown out is a bid to support those struggling with addiction.
“We are seeing a troubling trend within public discourse and public policy — the vilification of people who use drugs,” she said in a press release. “We have seen a desire to use the law to punish the most marginalized among us and remove their access to health care.”
Safety Concerns
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has defended his government’s decision to close nearly half of Ontario’s supervised drug consumption facilities.
He called the sites “the worst thing that could ever happen to a community” in a press conference last year, citing safety concerns raised by community members. He also said such sites do not help reduce addictions or the opioid crisis.
“Giving someone, an addict, a place to do their injections—we haven’t seen it get better,” he said. “I’ve been getting endless phone calls about needles being in the parks, needles being by the schools, and by the day cares. That’s unacceptable.”
The province is launching 19 HART Hubs in conjunction with the nine revamped sites. In total, there will be 28 facilities in operation.
The hubs will offer a new homeless and addiction program that the province says will prioritize community safety, treatment, and recovery. It has earmarked $550 million for the hubs, which will include 560 supportive housing units for those battling addiction. The funding represents approximately four times the amount allocated to the organizations when they ran as supervised drug consumption sites.
The hubs will offer primary care, integrated mental health and addictions care, social services and employment support, increased availability for shelter beds and supportive housing and other supplies and services, including access to showers, food, and Naloxone, a drug used to temporarily reverse the effects of opioid overdoses.
