Jasmine Flynn grew up in a home where both of her parents struggled with addiction, with her mother eventually passing away fentanyl Overdose in 2021.
Flynn said she has “her own experience of homelessness and drug use and street life culture” but currently she is in a good place, at home with her children and as a peer harm reduction worker in Peel Region. Is working.
She is one of many people involved in harm reduction on the front lines working to promote what she believes could be a lifeline for many people in the region’s three municipalities. Can: a supervised consumption site is located inside area of peel the headquarters.
“I think these sites are extremely important, because with the opioid crisis and especially fentanyl, a lot of people are using in isolation, which is leading to deaths,” he told Global News.
“People (at these sites) will get help immediately if they go down or have a problem like that.”
Inside Peel Region’s safe consumption site.
area of peel
The venue will be funded by local property taxpayers for two years and operate in the same building as local council meetings and other services.
The premise is simple: Create a place where people can access purchased illegal drugs with medical staff in case the supply becomes toxic.
The site also doubles as an opportunity for outreach, providing links to permanent housing, addiction help and even medical staff to deal with injuries in one place.
“The primary goal and task is to ensure that people are not using alone and are not at risk of dying from complications of a toxic drug supply,” said Adam Chalcraft, harm reduction manager for Moyo, the group he helps run. Said. Place.
“We are also able to provide on-site drug testing so people can see what is in their supply before they use…these sites are very effective in keeping people alive.”
It’s been a long journey for Peel Region to get here, opening the doors of its supervised consumption site, located downstairs in the chambers where local councilors meet every two weeks. This idea was sparked more than 10 years ago when opioid overdoses began to rise catastrophically.
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Between 2013 and 2019, the number of opioid overdose deaths in Peel Region increased 400 percent.
“Our trend really mimics the rest of the province,” Dr. Kate Bingham, Peel Region’s acting medical officer of health, told Global News.
Plans for a safe consumption site were drawn up in 2019 and then put on hold when the pandemic hit. In 2021, Peel saw a record-setting 186 deaths from overdose and plans began in earnest again.
In early March 2024, after a fruitless search of other locations and some community opposition, a site was opened in the area of Peel’s head office at Bramalea in Brampton.
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“We are certainly one of the health units that has been most impacted by the opioid poisoning crisis and subsequently opened a site like this,” Bingham said. “This has been demanded by the community and people who use drugs for a long time. I think everyone is happy that it’s starting here.”
Those involved admit the location isn’t perfect, but they’re grateful they have the space at all, pointing to benefits such as the ability to co-locate key services to the Region of Peel’s main office.
“There was some hesitation at the beginning, and certainly it may not be a perfect fit for everyone,” Bingham said.
Moyo’s Chalcraft said he was happy to finally find a spot. The Bramalea area, where Peel is headquartered, has been flagged by paramedics as one of the region’s problem areas for overdoses.
“We’re really pleased that the area is willing to welcome us into one of their buildings,” Chalcraft said. “And that site was also identified as one of the major areas where overdoses were occurring by EMS.”
According to Flynn, other locations in Peel Region had been identified as better for people who use drugs but local pressure made them impossible.
“Downtown Brampton was definitely a huge hotspot and would have been a great location, but there was a lot of community opposition from that side, and then a lot of businesses also didn’t want to have this certain site in their area,” he said. .
“It was basically one of the only options they could find… I think the need for the site was more important than the location at this point.”
The site is like a testbed as local officials scramble to respond as quickly as possible.
For two years, the supervised consumption site will be funded by local property taxpayers and allowed to operate through a waiver granted by the federal government. After that its future is unclear.
“This is a model that has been used in many other municipalities,” Bingham said.
“The intention for health sites with urgent public needs is really to create a bridge to get to a more sustained funding model… (the region) will provide funding for up to 24 months in the expectation that sustainable funding will be sought.”
However, at the provincial level, the Ford government has scaled back its support for supervised consumption sites.
An ongoing review by the Ministry of Health was launched by the Ministry of Health following the death of a Toronto mother in a shooting near a safe consumption site in Leslieville, an incident some in the community linked to the site.
A Ministry of Health spokesperson for Global News said the Peel Region site was not provincially approved or funded, although its passage through a federal exception allowed.
The results of the overall review by the province are unclear, but Bingham said he hopes to get clarity soon and the province remains open to giving the region full-time support for the site.
“We haven’t heard anything to suggest that part of the review will be to stop funding the sites, but I wouldn’t want to speak for the province,” she said. “We are hopeful that the review will conclude soon and we can understand the implications for the future of provincial funding.”
When two years of local funding expires in early 2026, the future of Peel’s new supervised consumption site will hang in the balance.
Flynn said the fact that the site has been launched is an important first step in helping people who use drugs in the region.
“This is a community that has been completely abandoned and isolated and treated with zero dignity or respect,” he said. “So even having a site like this, especially having staff on site who are actually caring about what’s going on, can make a big difference.”
He said the next two years will “demonstrate a need, statistically, on paper” for a safe consumption site.
“There’s really no way to go against that evidence,” he said.
However, the province is not making any promises.
“This site has never been a provincially approved CTS site,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health told Global News. “Given the extent of the sites, it will not be considered for provincial approval.”