Amid the debate over Safeworks’ fate, those living and working near the Sheldon Chumir centre have mixed opinions surrounding the consumption site
Calgary’s only supervised consumption site is back under the spotlight, with Alberta’s Mental Health and Addictions minister recently announcing his intention to close the Safeworks site at the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre and shift the province toward a recovery-oriented approach to combating drug addiction.
At city hall, councillors are gearing up to vote later this month on whether they support the province’s proposal to close the safe injection site in favour of opening other addiction treatment facilities, such as detox centres and rehabilitation clinics.
But amid the debate over Safeworks’ fate, those living and working near the Sheldon Chumir centre have mixed opinions surrounding the consumption site, which opened in the fall of 2017. It opened in response to Alberta’s ongoing opioid crisis, with the goal of providing a medically supervised facility for addicts to inject or consume drugs to reduce overdose deaths.
Arash Arbastan, who works at a barber shop one block from Sheldon Chumir, said the site has brought problems since it first opened seven years ago.
“It’s just not the same neighbourhood,” Arbastan said. “We used to see, in the summer, a lot of wedding brides and grooms come to the park to take pictures. You’d see a lot of families bring their kids to the water fountain and have a good day.
“Not anymore in this park. This whole summer, I went to the park for only five minutes and there was a huge fight that broke out. I didn’t feel safe, so I had to leave.
“I hope they get the right help, but I think it’s time to move (it).”
Other business owners in the Beltline shared similar opinions Thursday. Of five storefronts visited, employees at three agreed the site has increased public safety concerns.
Safe consumption site has saved lives
But while an influx of homelessness and drug use cause frustration among the Beltline business community, evidence shows the Safeworks site has saved lives.
In that time, the report states that staff responded to a total of 7,730 overdoses, including 91 in February. Of those, 36 required administration of Naloxone, while two required emergency medical response.
Also in March, the site’s staff made 449 referrals to clients to other AHS programs or external partner programs.
Sylvie Lebiahan, who works nearby, worries that more drug users would fatally overdose if the site closed. She thinks the province would be wrong to shutter Safeworks.
“Is it because the site is here that we have a lot of homeless people around? Yes, part of it is that,” she told Postmedia. “But if they do not get their safe care here, they’ll probably die more in the streets and they’ll put the system under more stress by needing EMS. And their treatments would be more costly for the society.”
‘It never made sense to have just one’
Peter Oliver, the president of the Beltline Neighbourhood Association argued the only way to effectively lessen the social disorder brought on by the Safeworks site would be to open more safe injection sites in other parts of the city, to reduce the concentration of users in the Beltline and the pressure currently on the Sheldon Chumir site.
“Before it opened, we had people shooting up or doing drugs in alleys and in parks,” he said. “Obviously, the drug crisis is a huge problem and this (facility) was a way to move some of that into a place where people could get some help and are less likely to overdose.
“On the other hand, we know it never made sense to have just one. Really, a distributed model (would be ideal), because people are overdosing all over the city.”
The Beltline’s area councillor, Courtney Walcott, disputes the notion that Safeworks has brought an increase in crime to the area — a claim made by Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean on Wednesday.
“The story they’re trying to create? It’s a false one,” Walcott said of the provincial government.
“If they’ve deemed this to be a failure, it’s their responsibility to close it. But I think the reason they can’t close it is because despite what everyone says, public opinion is not uniform.”