New home found for Halifax methadone clinic

Halifax's community-based methadone clinic has found a new home — directly across the street from its current location.

For the past 17 years, Direction 180 has dispensed methadone to a growing number of people at its modest location beside the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre on Gottingen Street.

The space was originally intended to treat 30 patients, but today more than 440 clients walk through the door. At its peak, Direction 180 regularly administered methadone to 530 clients.

Executive director Cindy MacIsaac said the building is long past its due date.

"We have some structural concerns about the building so I think this is a good time to make a fresh break," she said.

When the provincial government announced last fall it was investing $800,000 to battle the growing wait-list for opioid-addiction treatment in Nova Scotia, Direction 180 started looking for a new home.

It scouted three sites in the north end of the Halifax peninsula, but had no luck.

According to MacIsaac, when you operate a methadone clinic, finding a new space isn't always easy.

"We had looked around the peninsula, mostly around this area — and we had no success," she said. "When people learn who we are, they generally don't want to rent to us."

Then a neighbour stepped up.

Peter Jorna, who owns Scotia Pharmacy on Gottingen Street, said he had been following CBC News coverage of the difficulty Direction 180 was having as it scouted a new home.

Jorna, who is planning to move his pharmacy into the nearby MacDonald Building, also on Gottingen Street, has offered to rent his space to Direction 180.

New space is accessible

MacIsaac said she and her staff are eager to move.

"We'll be moving into a facility that is wheelchair accessible, new, clean and bright, and will provide us with a more efficient space to provide our services. So we're excited to move."

A larger, more modern space will be a "vast improvement," she said.

And Jorna said he doesn't expect much trouble from the neighbours.

"The ironic part about that is that anybody who lives beside a pharmacy is really, technically, beside a methadone clinic because most pharmacies dispense methadone there."

It'll be up to Direction 180 to undertake whatever renovations are needed to the former pharmacy, Jorna said.

He'll be moving his pharmacy out by mid-March, and Direction 180 plans to move into the vacant space by early summer.

Despite the new digs, MacIsaac said the organization is already eyeing its next move: Eventually, she said, Direction 180 will move in with the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre when its new location is built at the site of the former Red Cross on Gottingen Street.