By Stephanie Mancini
Published in June 2019
Last spring The Working Centre responded to the community need for a creative response to the growing impact of debilitating drug use, at a time when landlords were unwilling to host a potential Safe Consumption and Treatment (SCT) site location. We purchased an old degrading rooming house on Water Street with the goal of creating a place of welcome for people who are using drugs. This vision could include the SCT, but also includes an 8 bed house to provide interim housing. The house will be a welcoming and supportive environment for drug users (especially those without housing) to help them find rest and space in the midst of their addiction. In shared spaces, drug users often dominate the space, which can often create unsafe space for others. By focusing on the unique needs of drug users, we hope to create a place of practical, supportive and restful supports.
Our understanding of this issue had grown from the reality of the drug crisis that we see each day at St. John’s Kitchen. The Water Street house is a block away from St. John’s Kitchen and will build on the work that is already being done at St. John’s, the St. John’s Clinic and the Hospitality House, adding medical resources, on-the-ground addiction supports along with needed housing and respite space.
Political support for the SCT site went to 150 Duke. In our view this was highly disappointing as it will take many more public dollars to get the new site up and running. There are discussions to develop an interim Safe Consumption site which we hope can be operating soon, as the number of deaths and overdoses continues to skyrocket. Over 40 people have died in our community since December, many from the direct and indirect results of an unsafe drug supply; drugs that rapidly overpower the body.
At Shirley’s funeral, one woman raged against the current reality – where people overdose, are essentially dead, and then are alive again. “We die, we live, we die, we live… I can’t bear to live like this anymore.” How to escape this deep and tragic cycle of addiction, poverty and homelessness?
We have come to see the shifting role of the Water Street house as a blessing. Safe consumption will happen around the corner on Duke Street, but the Water Street house will focus on wellness, healing, rest and the deep relationship-based care than help people to be as well as they can be.
In early June, renovations will begin. We will be creating 8 rooms for interim housing – 3 beds operated in collaboration with WRPS to ensure people are safe without using important Emergency Department and/or Police resources, 3 beds that align to hospital care for those using injectable drugs requiring prolonged IV antibiotic therapy, and 2 respite/rest beds.
We are excited to continue with our work around access to health care, but to also consider wellness work and alternative therapies. We hope to support conversation circles, drumming circles, cognitive behaviour groups, and links with land-based healing and rest.
In collaboration with our partners in the Inner City Health Alliance, we will expand the ideas of the local village, where we will humbly walk along-side people, listening and learning while providing timely, comprehensive health care that honours the whole person – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Together we will work to honour the strength of this collective knowing, creating greater capacity to serve the growing needs in our inner cities.
We have lots to learn as we work together, creating a place of hope and practical supports in response to the devastating realities of these powerful drugs.
