Drug use sites in homeless shelters also face closure

Toronto homeless shelters that have been allowing occupants to use street drugs in a supervised internal facility will face the same restrictions as public supervised consumption sites, the province has confirmed - a decision one shelter executive fears will push people to use substances in nearby public spaces instead and risks leaving them to overdose without aid.

- VICTORIA GIBSON

The shelter-based programs, which are restricted to occupants and not available for walk-in users, were rolled out at a handful of shelters and respite centres in recent years in an effort to combat a surge of overdoses and deaths across the system.

Two sites - Seaton House in Moss Park and a Homes First site near the Harbourfront - are within 200 metres of a school or daycare, the radius in which the province intends to bar supervised consumption activity.

Patricia Mueller, CEO of Homes First, said they haven't received formal notice that the supervised consumption program operating inside their shelter - run by harm reduction program The Works will need to end, but with a school across the street, she fears it's only a matter of time.

She worries a closure would mean occupants of the 250-plus-bed shelter struggling with substance use and addiction will instead tum to more isolated places like shelter stairwells, or elsewhere in the community, such as parks or doorways, without trained staff nearby to intervene in case of an overdose.

"I think people that live near Bathurst and Lake Shore think, 'Great! This is going to clean up the community!" But I think it's going to be far more impactful," Mueller warned.

"Communities will see more literal needles on the streets There will be more deaths, and it will be traumatizing for communities when they happen in a public area"