Inside London's 'crystal palace:' where strung out drug addicts lie sprawled in the stairwells

A London public housing building that's been named as one of two proposed locations for London's first permanent safe consumption site is so drug infested, residents say it's been nicknamed "the Crystal Palace" because of the availability of crystal meth. 

The 12-storey highrise at 241 Simcoe Street is one of two locations the Middlesex-London Health Unit intends to potentially develop into a permanent supervised consumption site, the other being the John Bellone music store, across from Mission Services on York Street. 

• These are the 2 locations London's health unit wants for drug consumption sites

One of the local drug users, she gets a little crazy and she goes after people.- Justin Collins

Many of the people who live inside the apartment tower say they're afraid to leave their homes at night, are constantly cleaning up dirty needles left in the hallways and step over drug addicts sprawled in the stairwells on a daily basis. 

Tenant Rosetta Haddad has dozens of pictures on her phone of the people she's had to step over while climbing the staircases in a building where residents say the elevators are almost never in a state of good repair. 

'People throw themselves on the stairs'

'People throw themselves on the stairs'

7 years ago

Duration 0:31

'People throw themselves on the stairs'

"Sometimes they are vicious. Sometimes they yell at us," Haddad said. 

Others have been attacked, tenant Justin Collins was stabbed by a woman last September. 

"One of the local drug users, she gets a little crazy and she goes after people. She went after the resident contact with a knife, she went after the maintenance guy with a used needle," Collins said. 

Others, such as Tracy Shaw, said paramedics are at the building dealing with drug overdoses on what seems like a daily basis. 

'People I know have died in here'

"People I know have died in here, like I get to know them and all of a sudden they're dead because they've overdosed on that fentanyl. That stuff's really dangerous," she said.

According to Middlesex-London EMS, paramedics visited 241 Simcoe Street 213 times last year. So far this year, London paramedics have visited the building 50 times over a four month period from January to April. 

However, Middlesex-London EMS superintendent of education Jay Loosely said he couldn't pinpoint exactly how many of the calls were overdoses.

"I can't narrow it down to just overdoses because somebody calls for short of breath and maybe it turns out ot be an overdose, or they call for an overdose and maybe it's chest pain," he said. "Every 911 call is different."

Still, it's not difficult to find a resident who can remember someone who recently died from taking too much of a dangerous street drug. 

"There's a guy on the first floor here who just passed away from fentanyl," said tenant Derek Phillips. "Ziggy, he had long hair, he was a nice man." 

It seems like the meth heads have more say in the matter than the decent people who actually live here.- Ray Ernst

"He just happened to do a little more than he thought he was capable of using and he went to sleep and he stopped breathing and died." 

"When stuff like that happens you want a safe place where people can do this, just maybe not where our home is, but in a separate location or something." 

Phillips, who is a recovering opioid addict himself, said he doesn't want to see the permanent site opening here. 

"I understand they want to do this and have a safe place to inject," he said. "Myself, I'm in recovery and having people inject themselves here, I just don't think it's right. It's hard to live like that," he said. "It would be tempting." 

'We had no say in the matter'

'We had no say in the matter'

7 years ago

Duration 0:25

'We had no say in the matter'

Others are upset because they feel London Middlesex Public Housing didn't consult with residents before it decided to offer the property to health authorities as a potential location. 

Public housing officials broke the news at a community meeting on Friday, where Ray Ernst, the building's resident contact, the public sector's equivalent to a superintendent, quit. 

Ernst, who's lived in the building for eight years and been the building's resident contact for two and a half years, said he waged a daily battle trying to keep drugs out of the building. 

"I tried so hard to keep this place clean," he said. "Two and a half years of fighting to keep these buggers out and now they want to bring them in here. They want to put a free clinic in here. Come on in and do what you want."

"It seems like the meth heads have more say in the matter than the decent people who actually live here," he said. "I'm so tired man. I'm 58, I'm tired of fighting this battle." 

A first for Ontario

Michael Buzzelli, the board chair for the London Middlesex Housing Corporation, said the decision to offer the building as a potential site for a permanent safe consumption facility is "a moral obligation" based on the large concentration of drug users in the building and the surrounding neighbourhood.  

We're taking a principled stand. We're not shy about trying to be leaders in the community.- Michael Buzzelli

"We're taking a principled stand. We're not shy about trying to be leaders in the community. There is a need in that location," he said.  

Buzzelli said that public housing officials met with tenants on Friday and plan to hold further meetings once the proposed project gets going. 

"There will be ongoing tenant engagement to work with them on design and layout and features like security and those kinds of things."

"It's unfolding quickly, there are deadlines. There is a provincial election coming up and all of the partners want to get this together as quickly as possible to move this forward."