As funding for supervised consumption runs out, people who use drugs brace for the worst

On Friday, Sudbury's supervised consumption site, also known as the Spot, closed its doors after waiting for two years for provincial funding that never came through.  In Timmins, the Safe Health Site (SHST) almost met the same fate, until last minute funding from local agencies was secured.

Opioid mortality rates in both of these northern Ontario cities are three times higher than the provincial average – and on the streets of Timmins and Sudbury, people who use drugs worry about what life would be like without those facilities. 

Many say they aren't able or willing to stop using drugs for now.

Kaela Pelland, director of peer engagement at Réseau ACCESS Network, which runs the site in Sudbury, says she expects more fatal overdoses to happen in these communities as a result.

"What we're trying to do is keep people alive," she said, "and keep people as well as possible and provide safety for, not only people who use drugs, but for the community around them."

'I just felt safer'

Kevin Peltier was a client at the Spot, and says he's worried about what could happen if he doesn't have a supervised site to use drugs.

"I just felt safer, you know, knowing that there was, you know, trained medical staff on site," he said.

Fentanyl user Simon tells CBC The Spot gave him hope for a better future. 

CBC is not using his full name, as he fears repercussions for speaking about his drug use with the media.

Simon recently lost his brother to opioid poisoning, and he's been going to The Spot regularly since then. He tells his friends to go as well – especially those who use alone. 

"Everyone should be able to go home at the end of day and be there for their loved ones, not letting them down," he told CBC. 

"Not everyone is going to be a drug addict for the rest of their lives. We go through our phases and we pull through. And we could do something important one day. Have kids, maybe," he said. 

The Spot officially closed on Friday, after having supervised 3,826 drug consumptions and reversed 30 overdoses since it opened its doors in September 2022.

This, despite limited opening hours and a location a little further away from the downtown core, where a lot of people who use drugs spend their time. 

Future of supervised consumption sites in Ontario is uncertain

Last week the City of Timmins began contingency planning for the closure of the SHST facility on March 31st as funding was set to run out. 

On Sunday, a spokesperson from the Timmins and District Hospital told CBC the supervised drug consumption site would not close as previously announced, and that more details about the funding arrangement would be available shortly. 

Timmins and District Hospital CEO and President Kate Fyfe told city officials in a letter that the closure of the site would be staved off for good should Ontario's Ministry of Health commit to funding it.

She wrote that SHST reduced paramedic calls for opioid overdoses by almost 20 per cent in one year, and added that the facility also reversed 360 overdoses during the same time period. 

SHST has also discarded 130,759 needles so far – preventing them from landing in the streets or other public areas.

Annie, an unhoused person living in Timmins, is in a lot of emotional and physical pain. The forty-year old opioid user has lost her son, her mom and her partner, and she experienced severe abuse as a child. 

CBC has agreed not to use her full name.

She'd like to access some kind of therapy, but the one counsellor she was referred to costs $150 per hour. That's about half of the monthly assistance she receives from the province – her sole income. 

A fentanyl 'fix', on the other hand, is about $15. 

"I don't want to quit drugs," she says. "Talking me out of doing it isn't going to work. I wish there was an easier way. But I don't see where it is." 

Annie says reaching out for help hasn't led her anywhere, with mental health services referring her to addiction services, and addiction services referring her to mental health programs.

"They're sending you back and forth and nobody is helping, and people keep dying. So what do you do? I get high so that I don't have to feel it."

For people like Annie, supervised consumption sites like the Safe Health Site Timmins have been a lifeline. She visits the facility regularly, and overdosed there more than once. 

Further down the street, men named Josh and Mark tell CBC they visit the SHST at least once a week, mostly to pick up supplies. 

CBC has agreed not to use their full names.

"I pass the stuff around to my buddies so they stay safe, Narcan kits and stuff like that," he said. 

Mark says he overdosed there once, and the drug poisoning was so bad he ended up in the hospital for three weeks. 

He says without the SHST, Timmins' downtown would look a lot worse. 

"A lot of people would be dying, there would be more [needles] in the laneways and sidewalks," he said.

Josh and Mark say they'd like to stop using drugs, but they can't. 

"It's very hard to explain to a non-user," said Mark. 

"Your body gets sore and everything. There's no way to explain it. I know they offer Suboxone and stuff like that. But then it's the mental part about it," adds Josh. 

Both worry about what would happen if the supervised consumption site were to close. 

"Everybody's life is just equal. Sure we got medical problems, addiction problems. But we're still human now. And everybody deserves a chance," said Josh.

The province paused new funding applications after a woman was killed by a stray bullet following an incident outside a supervised consumption site in Toronto's east end last year.

In an email, Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for Ontario's minister of health Sylvia Jones, said the province is continuing to pause applications while it reviews all 17 sites. 

"These reviews remain ongoing and will inform the next steps taken by the Ministry of Health including funding, location and application decisions," she wrote.

The latest provincial budget included money for treatment beds and mental health counselling, but made no mention of supervised drug consumption services.