Province says crime is an issue around CTS sites, but data shows that's not the case in Kitchener

Calls to police about several types of crime and delinquency have decreased in downtown Kitchener and Guelph since supervised consumption and treatment services (CTS) sites opened in the neighbourhoods, police data suggests.

And experts who have studied the sites say the research shows they don't increase crime.

CBC News used police crime map data to compare calls for service for seven different types of police incidents from January through July 2024 with statistics from the same period the year prior to the opening of the two sites.

The incidents included assaults, robberies, and property damage.

In downtown Kitchener, it found that the number of calls to police, about five of those seven types of incidents, was down compared to the same period prior to the opening of the CTS sites – and those decreases were even greater than those seen in the city as a whole.

Downtown Guelph outperformed the city as a whole when it came to calls for service for two incident-types: assaults and disturbances.

Province alleges higher crime in areas with CTS sites

"The claim that these sites exacerbate crime is completely untrue," said Thomas Kerr, a professor of social medicine at the University of British Columbia who has researched the relationship between supervised consumption sites and crime.

"It's fiction, and it's just political gamesmanship."

Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced on Tuesday that the province is shutting down sites that operate within 200 metres of schools and daycare centres, meaning 10 of Ontario's 17 sites — including those in Kitchener and Guelph — must close by March 31 of next year.

Crime in neighbourhoods where CTS sites are located is higher than in surrounding neighbourhoods, the government said in a news release announcing the closures.

"In Toronto, reports of assault in 2023 are 113 per cent higher and robbery is 97 per cent higher in neighbourhoods near these sites compared to the rest of the city," the release read.

"Near the Hamilton site, reports of violent crime were 195 per cent higher compared to the rest of the city, and the crime rate near the Ottawa site was 250 per cent higher than the rest of the city."

But Kerr asked, "How do we know that has anything to do with the operation of the supervised consumption site?" 

The only way to accurately assess a site's effect on crime, he said, is to "look at how the rate of disorder and crime changes from a time before versus after a supervised injection site and then use other neighbourhoods as controls." 

CBC looked up the number of calls for service related to seven different types of incidents for the period between Jan. 1 and July 31, 2024. It compared them to the number of calls for service in the same time period in 2019, prior to the opening of the Kitchener CTS site. 

It also compared the change in the number of calls in the Central One zone, where the site is located, with the change citywide. 

Here's what we found:

CBC's findings mirrored those of Region of Waterloo Public Health and Paramedic Services in its 2023 evaluation of the Kitchener site.

"The crime statistics provided by [Waterloo Regional Police Service] demonstrate that the presence of the CTS has not been connected to an increase in crime in the area, despite public perception surrounding this issue," the service wrote in its report.  

CBC performed the same analysis for the Guelph CTS site using data from Jan. 1 to July 31, 2024 and the same time period in 2017 and found the following:

Jones has billed the closure of the CTS sites as an effort to protect public safety, particularly the safety of school children. 

But an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo,said the sites are located in areas where the need for them exists because drug activity is already taking place.

"If anything, for me it will make the community safer because those individuals are not going to be running around intoxicated," Wasem Alsabbagh said.

"So think about a school for example. If you have a safer place to dispose of the [needles], is it better for that school? Or if I have no place for that safe disposal … and they are being thrown in the street, what is really safer for schools?"

Alsebbagh, who has worked at Community Healthcaring KW since before the CTS site opened, said he hasn't noticed much of a change in downtown Kitchener for better or for worse since the opening.

That sentiment was echoed by the owner of a business located approximately 350 metres from the site.

"I wouldn't say that [crime has] increased or decreased since before the site was there," said Osman Sokolovic, the owner of King Framing.

"I mean, everything that we have here is fairly locked down and secure. ... if you leave something outside overnight or leave the garage open, it's all going to be gone in the morning."

But Sokolovic said, that's nothing new.

"That's just a downtown thing," he said.