Toronto police have arrested a man who is accused of stealing police equipment from a parked car in the city’s South Riverdale neighbourhood Officers say the incident happened on April 30 at approximately 4:00 a.m. near Queen Street East and Broadview Avenue the man smashed the rear passenger window of the parked vehicle and stole the unspecified items before fleeing the area police arrested 34-year-old Carl Chateauvert of Quebec theft under $5,000 and failure to comply with a release order He was scheduled to appear in court at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre on Saturday A Canadian man arrested on vacation has been proven innocent Melissa Nakhavoly with why he is still being held in the Dominican Republic Warmer temperatures but showers are expected on-and-off for the next few days Meteorologist Natasha Ramsahai has your seven-day forecast Ontario Premier Doug Ford calls on Prime Minister Mark Carney to prioritize a list of projects including the proposed Highway 401 tunnel a mentally ill man who was killed in an Ontario prison is calling out the provincial government over the lack of correctional reform listen to NewsRadio Toronto live anytime and get up-to-the-minute breaking-news alerts weather and video from CityNews Toronto anywhere you are – across all Android and iOS devices Yesterday community health care workers at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC) rallied to demand that their employer address the severe underfunding and understaffing crisis at the centre After more than eight months at the bargaining table SRCHC management still refuses to offer members of CUPE 5399 a real wage increase community health care workers at the centre have experienced extremely stressful working conditions battling a crisis in staffing and impossibly high workload The SRCHC is a cherished health and community care hub where social workers and community health workers provide essential health care and social and community outreach services to Toronto’s east-end residents which represents over 120 health care workers at SRCHC voted 92 per cent in favour of strike action if concrete measures are not taken to improve their ability to better serve the residents who rely on them the local will hit the picket line on November 1 Members of Local 5399 and community allies rallied in front of the centre as well as SRCHC and Regent Park community health care workers spoke “The workers of South Riverdale have spoken loud and clear SRCHC is sleepwalking its way towards a strike but everyone knows how these matters get resolved: with more money for workers Services at SRCHC are already deeply affected by low wages which are at the root of high staff turnover and the centre’s inability to hire and keep staff The members of CUPE 5399 want to be able to afford to work at the jobs they love the jobs that support the community of South Riverdale and they need the Ford government to step up with proper funding for community health services,” said Fred Hahn Workers are asking members of the public to send a message of support: cupe.on.ca/fairwagesforsrchc Ontario K1G 0Z7 Tel: (613) 237-1590 Fax: (613) 237-5508  Toll free: (844) 237-1590 The South Riverdale Community Health Centre will soon be opening Toronto’s second official supervised safe injection site now that Health Canada has granted the Leslieville agency final approval to do so and the information within may be out of date will be the first in Canada to be embedded in a community health centre when it opens by the end of November The South Riverdale Community Health Centre was informed by Health Canada on Nov 16 that it had passed its final inspection which effectively exempts the site from the Controlled Drug and Substance Act “We are thrilled to finally be able to offer a safe non-judgmental space where people can use drugs,” said Jason Altenberg director of programs and services at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre The site becomes the second in Toronto after the one operated by Toronto Public Health at Victoria Street and Dundas Street East is a reporter and columnist for Metroland Media Toronto He is also an author of speculative fiction His most recent book is VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: And it could be yours for a cool $1,839,000 the house was last purchased in 2008 for $536,000.) The home’s third floor boasts a peaceful retreat of a bedroom and a walk-out to a private tree-top terrace The finished basement serves as a perfect recreational space and office with an eight-foot ceiling and radiant floor heating The basement also features a laundry room with a two-piece bathroom Other notable property features include a landscaped front garden and new cedar porch whereby the public can purchase these beloved decorations and snap photos of the home one more time ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ One of our favourite features of this home is the exposed brick throughout which nicely balances out the home's sleekness And although we have a soft spot for raw brick the white paint that covers it adds a fresh and airy touch to the space As for Shore, we can't help but be curious as to his next move. An early adaptor of the digital media world, Shore launched blogTO in 2004, and the site has become a popular source for everything Toronto-related -- the good, the bad, and the ugly. In January 2022, Shore sold the site to ZoomerMedia for $15 million. Join the conversation You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account A week after Doug Ford’s Ontario government passed legislation in early December ordering all supervised injection sites within 200 metres of schools and daycares to close harm reduction activists did the expected and announced they were taking the province to court Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience This announcement gave the 10 sites across Ontario ordered to close by March 31 a measure of hope Among these 10 sites is the injection site I live across the street from in the South Riverdale Community Health Centre This newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc The next issue of Platformed will soon be in your inbox Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Whatever lift this litigation provided to injection site missionaries criminal court case blew harm reduction’s balloon out of the sky This tenuous position lost all credibility on Aug. 14, 2023, when police charged a South Riverdale injection site employee, 22-year-old Khalila Mohammed, with aiding and abetting one of the alleged shooters, Ahmed Ibrahim, in his escape from the crime scene, in addition to obstruction of justice. When Mohammed entered a plea of guilty to being an accessory after the fact just days prior to Christmas, another bullet may have been fired —  this time right through the vital organs of supervised injection sites in Ontario. The 28-page agreed statement of facts entered as an exhibit by Mohammed’s prosecutors, which I obtained, is a detailed and dramatic illustration of how harm reduction ideology turned on itself, glorifying illicit drug culture at the expense of the families who relied on the two elementary schools and six daycare facilities within 150 metres of South Riverdale’s injection site. Prosecutors describe how the three men allegedly involved in Huebner-Makurat’s death were all drug dealers who came to the South Riverdale Community Health Centre (in Ibrahim’s case, from kilometres away) to sell to drug users in the parkette beside the site for months prior to the shooting. They joined other dealers who had operated in the parkette since the site opened in late 2017 (the same parkette had no such drug activity prior to then). Prior to the shooting, Mohammed spent “extensive amounts of time” in the parkette talking to 20-year-old Ibrahim, whom she referred to as Ben, according to the synopsis. Mohammed also communicated with another dealer arrested for Huebner-Makurat’s death, Damian Hudson, prior to the shooting, including by text. Hudson warned Mohammed not to engage with Ibrahim and other dealers he was competing with. He called them his “opps.” It’s worth noting that South Riverdale, before its site opened, had assured my neighbourhood it would have a “zero-tolerance drug-dealing policy.” Moments before the shooting, Hudson and Ibrahim were chatting by a bench in the parkette, steps from the site. One of Ibrahim’s drug-dealing accomplices, Ahmed Ali, who police believe fled to Somalia after the shooting, approached Hudson from behind and pistol-whipped him. Mohammed then exited the side door of the site into the parkette, rushing towards the altercation. According to the statement of facts, Ibrahim grabbed Hudson’s satchel of drugs and cash and ran west. Ali followed him once he was able to get free, and Hudson pursued them. Police found six cartridge casings from the ensuing gunfight — four from Ali’s handgun, and two from Hudson’s, including the bullet that allegedly killed Huebner-Makurat. Mohammed ran back inside the injection site when shots started to be fired. Not long after, Ibrahim returned to the site’s side door with a grey sweater covering his head and was escorted inside by Mohammed, John Barr, the injection site’s nurse, and a drug user named Leila. Barr provided medical assistance to Ibrahim while Mohammed was at his side as Huebner-Makurat lay dying on the sidewalk outside. Once Mohammed had provided Ibrahim with a change of clothes, he was escorted out the front door of the health centre by Mohammed and Leila. The three of them walked south the length of my street, Heward Avenue, before Mohammed ordered an Uber for Ibrahim a few blocks away so he could go home to the eastern suburb of Scarborough. Ibrahim and Mohammed went on to exchange a prolific number of text messages, as Mohammed became a mole for Ibrahim when it came to whether he’d been captured on any of the centre’s security cameras. She also procured Percocet pills for him. Three days after the shooting, Mohammed told Ibrahim that, during a staff meeting about the shooting, her colleagues said they feared him and his friends, even though there is no evidence anyone on staff ever did anything about this cabal of drug dealers outside of the injection site, literally across the street from two daycares and an elementary school. The police came calling two days later and interviewed Mohammed. She told them she had no clue who the guy was who had his wounds treated inside the site by nurse John Barr. Mohammed also told police she had no idea how to get in touch with Ben, the drug dealer she was texting non-stop with. When news of Damian Hudson’s arrest hit the news the next day, Mohammed texted Ibrahim immediately. “That’s crazy,” Ibrahim replied. “Holay [sic] f–k. I’m done for.” For the next week, Ibrahim’s texts were rife with mentions of “stress and shit” and how a billboard with his face on it was causing him to “bug out.” Mohammed and Ibrahim were now star-crossed lovers, and she tried to calm him not just by assuring him she had disposed of his blood-soiled clothing, but also by renting an Airbnb for them to get away from it all in. After Mohammed and Ibrahim were arrested a few weeks later, Mohammed provided a lengthy statement to homicide detectives. She continued to lie about not knowing Ibrahim. She also denied having been at the Airbnb with him, even though police surveilled them being there and had the transaction receipts. While Khalila Mohammed may not be summonsed to appear in person on March 24 and 25 when an Ontario judge listens to arguments from various advocates about how incredibly safe and essential injection sites are for neighbourhoods such as mine, she will nevertheless loom large over the proceedings. For a year and a half, South Riverdale and its drug policy allies were able keep the truth about the site’s cozy relationship with violent drug dealers hidden behind an ideological curtain. Now that the truth has been unveiled, South Riverdale has acknowledged in two recent meetings that its injection site will close regardless of the outcome of the litigation brought by the Kensington site. Its leaders acknowledge that the social contract with its neighbours has been decimated and the health centre’s reputation has suffered significant damage. As one judge considers whether it’s a violation of drug users’ charter rights to be denied safe injection sites within 200 metres of schools and daycares, Khalila Mohammed will appear before a different judge on March 28 for her sentencing hearing. transmission or republication strictly prohibited This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy You can manage saved articles in your account This article was published more than 6 months ago drug users in Toronto’s east end have relied on the South Riverdale Community Health Centre as a place to inject opioids under the watch of health care professionals Staff have reversed hundreds of potentially fatal overdoses and connected vulnerable people with other services But the supervised consumption site has also courted controversy Neighbours complained it had become a magnet for drug dealers intoxicated individuals and discarded needles was killed by a stray bullet while walking nearby One of three people arrested in connection with the shooting was a health centre employee The Ontario government ordered a review of the program – one that became a sort of trial of supervised consumption sites in the province in general Ontario said it will shutter 10 of the province’s 23 drug-use sites – those within 200 metres of a school or daycare – and prevent them from relocating or new ones from opening It also announced $378-million for new treatment centres that won’t allow for supervised use or other vital harm reduction services such as clean needles More money for treatment is overdue but slashing harm reduction services is a mistake data clearly show that drug-use sites reduce overdose deaths and offer people access to health services They also keep at least some people from shooting up in public affordable housing or other initiatives aimed at addressing the woeful blend of addiction mental health problems and powerful synthetic opioids But people need to be alive to seek other services Two official reviews of the South Riverdale service recommended expanding and improving its operations Yet the controversies around the South Riverdale Centre has foregrounded an issue sometimes overlooked by advocates: harm reduction programs need social licence and community buy-in if they’re going to succeed politically Critics of last week’s decision may argue that Mr Ford latched on to a tragedy – the death of Ms Huebner-Makurat – to push through a new drug policy that’s based more on ideology than evidence or expert advice It’s certainly of a piece with resurgent drug-war rhetoric coming from Conservative politicians across the country including federal party leader Pierre Poilievre who has labelled supervised consumption sites “drug dens.” Yet the backlash to the South Riverdale site was building before the shooting Similar challenges exist around sites in Montreal People living near the South Riverdale Centre have reasonable grievances about public disorder risks to children and discarded paraphernalia These issues are tied to broader problems of homelessness and addiction which would exist with or without drug-use sites But harm reduction facilities do concentrate problems around specific locations The people running harm reduction operations have a responsibility to be better neighbours And it’s not clear the South Riverdale Centre always lived up to that Both reviews of the program found too little emphasis on neighbourhood security and poor communication with nearby residents when health centre staff were asked about the community “the answer was often ‘drug users’ or ‘clients,’ thus demonstrating that the primary focus was on the service-user needs but not on the neighbours as community and how services may impact them.” the South Riverdale Centre has begun to remedy some of these shortcomings: hiring security personnel expanding their neighbourhood checks for needles and setting up better channels to communicate with neighbours and police Shutting down the service was not the answer Ford is not wrong to emphasize the need for public safety Any sustainable push to address the ills of the fentanyl crisis must have a broad enough conception of community to include But Ontario’s sweeping decision to gut life-saving harm reduction services in the province is a major misstep one that fails to address the problems it purports to solve Report an editorial error Report a technical issue Editorial code of conduct Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. 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For more information on our commenting policies and how our community-based moderation works, please read our Community Guidelines and our Terms and Conditions You will also start receiving the Star's free morning newsletter This semi-detached bungaloft at 17 Blackburn St. has one bedroom, one bathroom and an open-concept layout, located near Gerrard Street and Broadview Avenue The dining room with an accent pine green wall and a sizeable window The spacious laundry room with ample storage solutions The loft bedroom sized to accommodate a king-sized bed The main floor’s living area comes with a Murphy bed for guests or additional space The kitchen with wooden countertops and stainless steel appliances The white-tiled bathroom has a frosted-glass shower and soaking tub The open-concept kitchen has a door that leads directly to the backyard The house has an open-concept layout with 20-foot ceilings The backyard has a stone-tiled pathway and space for a barbecue and gazebo X-factor: The selling point of this home is the neighbourhood and “the fact that this is a pretty solid option for a condo alternative,” according to local real estate agent Kylie Walters who spoke to the Star to share her thoughts on the listing This semi-detached bungaloft at 17 Blackburn Street, near Gerrard Street and Broadview Avenue The property boasts 20-foot ceilings and accommodating space for a loft bedroom with a custom-built spiral staircase The exterior of the home is cream-coloured with a brown roof and a brown-painted wooden staircase leading up to the black front door A stone pathway wraps around the side of the house to the backyard fit with a gazebo The white-themed bathroom is connected to the kitchen and features a frosted glass shower a soaker tub and considerable storage options A floral-patterned backsplash lines the wall behind the sink Connected to the washroom is the considerably-sized laundry room Walters says this home is ideal for a first-time buyer or “a couple who don’t mind being in close quarters.” The house also comes equipped with a Murphy bed for guests in the living room and white exposed brick wallpaper The white-cabinet kitchen comes with wooden countertops and stainless steel appliances The movable island contains additional storage space underneath and doubles as a breakfast bar Walters says this area is great because it’s very close to Riverdale Park and is also accessible to downtown by car or transit “The area is extremely vibrant and diverse,” Walters said She also mentioned how the house is situated closely to the Don Valley Parkway but “could get noisy during rush hour.” Walters said it is “very reasonable” considering how one bedroom one bathroom condos are selling for around the same price point in the city “You pay a little more here for a yard freedom from condo corporations and you also get to avoid the condo fees,” she said According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s market watch report the average price of a semi-detached home in Toronto in September was $1,090,749 The same report shares semi-detached homes made up close to 9 per cent of sales in September #GTAHomeHunt is a series from the Star that gets into the details of real estate listings in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. Have a tip? Email us at social@torstar.ca Account processing issue - the email address may already exist Invalid password or account does not exist Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account Toronto Fire Services was called to a house in South Riverdale just before 6:00 p.m Crews arrived at 16 McGee Street near Eastern Avenue to find flames shooting out the roof and upgraded the situation to a second alarm fire It is unclear how many people were inside the house at the time of the fire Road in the area were closed for several hours while crews battled the blaze Toronto Fire Services says they are making good progress on the house and that most of the flames have been put out The extent of the damage is currently unknown FIRE:Eastern Ave & McGee St6:24 pm– reports of fire– @Toronto_Fire o/s– 2nd alarm fire– police o/s– no reported injuries– road closures in the area#GO2185112^sc A Canadian man arrested on vacation has been proven innocent. Melissa Nakhavoly with why he is still being held in the Dominican Republic. Warmer temperatures but showers are expected on-and-off for the next few days. Meteorologist Natasha Ramsahai has your seven-day forecast. Ontario Premier Doug Ford calls on Prime Minister Mark Carney to prioritize a list of projects including the proposed Highway 401 tunnel. The family of Soleiman Faqiri, a mentally ill man who was killed in an Ontario prison, is calling out the provincial government over the lack of correctional reform Now New and Improved! Watch CityNews, listen to NewsRadio Toronto live anytime and get up-to-the-minute breaking-news alerts, traffic, weather and video from CityNews Toronto anywhere you are – across all Android and iOS devices. A little over a year after a mother of two young children was gunned down by drug dealers outside of the supervised injection site at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Toronto’s east end announced today that it will be closing 10 of the province’s 17 drug consumption sites due to their proximities to schools and daycares Jones made the announcement Tuesday afternoon at the Association of Municipalities (AMO) conference in Ottawa Citing a barrage of safety concerns from parents who live near such sites as well as businesses and communities forced to endure “disruptive behaviour,” the health minister finally declared that supervised injection sites will no longer be permitted to operate within 200 metres of schools and daycare facilities in Ontario Jones backed up the decision by citing crime statistics compiled by the Solicitor General in conjunction with municipal police forces figures that sharply counter what harm-reduction advocates often cite from places far from Ontario as evidence that consumption sites don’t increase crime in the neighbourhoods around them neighbourhoods near supervised injection sites in Toronto suffered a whopping 113 per cent more reported assaults than neighbourhoods without them “Violent crime,” continued the health minister “was up 146 per cent near Ottawa’s Somerset site and homicide was 450 per cent higher near Hamilton’s urban core.” called Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) sites in Ontario compared to other parts of their cities without such sites: 76 per cent higher reports of break and enter 97 per cent more robberies and 45 per cent greater reports of homicide The announcement also addressed another controversial health-care practice: so-called “safe supply,” prescription opioids provided to those suffering with addictions part of a national pilot project to combat the surging overdose crisis The forthcoming legislation from the provincial government will not only prohibit 10 of Ontario’s 17 consumption sites (five of which are in Toronto) from operating beyond March 31 due to their proximity to schools and daycares it will also include measures to prohibit “any new CTS site from opening or participating in federal so-called safer supply initiatives,” a comment that received thunderous applause from the municipality conference attendees Jones then unveiled something resembling a plan to replace what she sees as failed harm-reduction initiatives — a $378-million investment in 19 facilities her government has dubbed “HART (Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment) Hubs” across Ontario which the consumption sites slated to close can apply to transition to (receiving priority status along the way) integrated mental health and addictions care Not only will these hubs not include supervised consumption and safe supply but they also won’t include needle distribution will encourage applicants to customize the features of each hub to best meet the needs of its community The province is also promising that these HART Hubs will collectively add “up to 375 supportive housing units alongside addiction treatment and recovery beds” to transition to “more stable housing.” This initiative is part of Ontario’s Roadmap to Wellness plan which includes a total investment of $3.8 billion over 10 years Jones threw out some large figures: $396 million in 2024 to expand mental-health services $124 million for up to 500 more addiction recovery beds and mobile mental health clinics $152 million for supportive housing and $19 million to build ten new youth wellness hubs the city of Toronto and both the provincial and federal ministries of health Activists for harm-reduction and consumption sites also caught wind of Jones’ plan to shutter those sites too close to schools impromptu protest outside the AMO conference in Ottawa stating that closing these consumption sites will result in “an inevitable increase in overdose deaths if sites are forced to move to outlying areas of the negative impacts these sites have wrought on the communities around them including the devastating crime statistics gathered by the Solicitor General even though that agency recently had its application to decriminalize deadly drugs such as fentanyl throughout the city summarily rejected by the federal Health Minister Ya’ara Saks Nor did Chow address one of Jones’ key points — if a legal cannabis dispensary can’t get a licence from the province to operate near schools and daycares which rely on the services of sometimes armed drug dealers who inevitably operate around them The Ford government also released the reports commissioned by its ministry of health last fall just prior to Jones’ announcement both recommended the site continue to operate in its current location but with some recommended changes (one being that on-site mental-health treatment options Toronto Public Health reported that 89 per cent of opioid-related deaths included people who had been hospitalized for mental-health issues) It’s clear the Ford government did not agree with either of these reports The report the Ontario Conservatives seem to have put the most stock in was a companion report by Unity Health Toronto Many felt Unity Health was a questionable choice for this review given that Unity’s MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions conducted much of the research that built the foundation for the first supervised injection sites that opened in Toronto in 2017 The keepSIX Consumption and Treatment Service at the Riverdale Community Health Centre (CHC) officially closed its doors on Friday It was forced to close under provincial legislation that restricted supervised drug consumption sites from being within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres The ban will force 10 of the 17 provincially regulated consumption sites to close across Ontario They will be replaced by new treatment hubs called Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs the Riverdale CHC said this marks the end of an important service “We remain dedicated to providing compassionate care equitable harm reduction services & advocating for the wellbeing of our clients,” read the statement Riverdale residents previously aired their concerns about the criminal activity around the site especially after 44-year-old Karolina Huebner-Makurat was accidentally struck by gunfire and killed near the area in July 2023 A woman who worked as a community health worker was later charged in the daytime shooting Huebner-Makurat’s death prompted the review of consumption sites by the province advocates and homeless people have all said consumption site closures would lead to more deaths as the HART Hub model does not permit supervised consumption Toronto Public Health has called on the Ford government to allow increased access to supervised consumption sites that are available within the legislation and permit needle exchange services within HART hubs to reduce the transmission of communicable diseases They add the closure of the consumption sites will also put additional strain on Toronto Paramedic Services a collective of library workers in the province are concerned about the impact on libraries amid the imminent closure of Supervised Consumption Sites They recently conducted a survey and found that 41 per cent of Ontario library workers have responded to a suspected overdose at work and only half felt confident in how they handled it “Our jobs increasingly include responding to drug poisonings (overdoses) and crisis intervention … The closure of SCSs will place an even bigger burden on underfunded and underprepared public spaces like the library,” read their statement we are bracing for the loss of these vital services and the impact it will have on our communities They urged the Ontario government to rethink the decision “If the Government of Ontario goes against its own internal research that states supervised consumption sites save lives, more Ontarians will overdose and die in public libraries.” Check back in with us at any time to find out what's happening President Donald Trump is planning to put a '100% tariff' on movies produced outside of America Erica Natividad with how this may impact Canada's closely tied industry The family of an Ontario man who died in a correctional facility in 2016 is calling out the provincial government for failing to act on recommendations made in an inquest into his death President Donald Trump is planning to put a ‘100% tariff’ on movies produced outside of America Erica Natividad with how this may impact Canada’s closely tied industry The effort to relieve congestion with a tunnel under Highway 401 is now on PM Mark Carney’s radar Premier Ford listed the project as one of Ontario’s top priorities in need of federal support Ontario’s measles outbreak is showing no signs of slowing and for the first time in a while the province’s top doctor publicly addressed the growing health crisis The annual tradition of cherry blossom viewing at High Park is in full swing as the trees hit peak bloom Audra Brown with everything you need to know before joining the huge crowds of cherry blossom enthusiasts preparing for a first meeting with the U.S and some say simply getting America to agree to a framework for negotiations going forward is the goal The woman who says she was sexually assaulted by five former world junior hockey players faced cross-examination as defence council questioned what she said happened in a London hotel room in 2018 One of the busiest air travel hubs in America is entering a second week of mounting delays and cancellations Laura Aguierre looks at the mounting frustration as the U.S Federal Aviation Authority copes with a staffing shortage Jury selection has begun at the trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Leigh Waldman discusses the charges the music mogul is facing and why finding an impartial jury could prove difficult National Weather Service is in worse shape than previously thought due to a combination of layoffs Ivan Rodriguez explores the impact that could have as hurricane season approaches 80% of the Cardinals who have the task of choosing a new Pontiff were named by Pope Francis this is a group that will be significantly different from the ones who have chosen other Popes in the past One group in South Riverdale is working to make swimming accessible for all genders in Toronto by launching the city’s first-ever gender-diverse swim program in open waters Cherry Beach has made big waves of transformation over the years a group that wants to welcome gender-diverse folks into Toronto’s open waters there’s a lot of history of queer folks not feeling comfortable whether it’s in sporting groups [or] in change rooms having more and more spaces that kind of create that space where folks can come and feel comfortable enough to come in [is important],” says Tai Hollingbery head coach and program manager of the swim club The club’s open water swim program started in July 2024 at Cherry Beach where swimmers of all levels meet every Sunday morning Beginners learn to swim in open water for the first time while more advanced swimmers train to compete Lev Goldberg is training to be the first transgender athlete to swim across Lake Ontario gender dysphoria was one thing that kept me away from the pool for a good chunk of my life from when I was around 10 to when I was about 27,” Goldberg explains And one thing that made it feel safer and more welcoming was being able to have that space with other queer people Downtown Swim Club partners with Toronto Queer Swim Club for its open water program The 37-year-old club connects skilled swimmers with less experienced ones who identify as queer “I think there’s still a lot of heterosexism in sports I think a lot of gay and lesbian and queer swimmers feel more comfortable swimming with each other and swimming with coaches who understand them feel comfortable at it and get good at something,” explains John Harvey “It also gives them social options afterward and during that wouldn’t be there in another type of club.” A lack of universal change rooms at open-water locations and feeling like an outsider in the swimming community are just two of the reasons that prevent queer Torontonians from swimming in open water There are only three gender-neutral change rooms across the city — none of them at open water locations.  the club has received over 80 inquiries about swim opportunities for queer and gender-diverse people “It’s just a really great opportunity to be able to be there for some people’s first open water swim ever and to see people learning and experiencing that you can swim in Lake Ontario is just really This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page The outrage over the shooting of Karolina Huebner-Makurat contributed to Doug Ford’s move to close of several safe-injections sites across the province A still from surveillance footage at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre shows Ahmed Ibrahim being escorted out of the front of the building by Khalila Mohammed Text messages between health worker Khalila Mohammed and Ahmed Ibrahim established that their relationship “blossomed into a romance”  immediately after the shooting of Karolina Huebner-Makurat A community harm-reduction health worker has pleaded guilty to being an accessory to manslaughter in connection to the high-profile shooting death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat outside a Leslieville safe injection site two summers ago Khalila Mohammed has admitted to developing a relationship with a man she helped flee the scene — by treating his wounds and sending him a chain of texts revealing a “romance” that began immediately after Huebner-Makurat’s death “I wanna be there for you and by your side,” Mohammed wrote in one text message, dated July 9, 2023 — two days after a stray bullet struck and killed the 44-year-old mother of two, sparking intense local outrage in the bustling area near the South Riverdale Community Health Centre Huebner-Makurat was on her way to lunch with a friend when alleged drug dealers exchanged bullets on the busy street The furor over her killing — in a neighbourhood that had warned about open drug use and increased crime around the facility — contributed to Premier Doug Ford’s move earlier this year to ban safe injection sites near schools and daycares The health centre’s site — one of the city’s first when it opened in November 2017 — is being forced to close who supervised users injecting drugs at the site since 2021 stood in a downtown Toronto courtroom with her lawyer Brian Greenspan and admitted she assisted Ahmed Ibrahim — with whom she developed a romantic relationship after the killing She was supposed to have a preliminary hearing earlier this month; her guilty plea eliminates the need for a trial Ontario Court Justice Russell Silverstein asked Mohammed if she had read a 28-page synopsis of the case and understood her decision Your Honour,” the Pickering resident said in a soft voice She had no criminal record before this offence and acknowledged she will receive a conviction and criminal record is set to stand trial for second-degree murder for allegedly firing the shot that killed Huebner-Makurat has meanwhile been ordered to stand trial for robbery and manslaughter He is not alleged to have been armed that day Police believe a third suspect — Ahmed Ali alleged to be the shooter who exchanged fire with Hudson — has fled to Somalia Ibrahim and Ali were drug dealers who frequented the parkette next to the health centre According to the court’s summary of the case Mohammed spent a lot of time there talking to Ibrahim surveillance cameras captured a man alleged to be Ali attacking Hudson Pandemonium erupted when the guns came out; in all four fired from a .40-calibre handgun and two from a .22-calibre pistol While Huebner-Makurat lay dying on Queen Street She then provided him with a change of clothing escorted him off the premises and ordered him a ride-sharing vehicle with her personal account established that their relationship “blossomed into a romance” immediately after the shooting it is clear that Khalila Mohammed is aware that Ibrahim was directly involved in the shooting of Karoline Huebner-Makurat She suggests to him that he ‘stay away for a while’ to avoid being arrested by police She offers to provide him with Percocet pills She offers to check the news media releases regarding the shooting She says she is going to check surveillance footage to see if he is visible,” the 28-page document states It adds there is no evidence that she actually checked footage or had access to it In the same July 9 text conversation where she wrote she wanted to be “by your side,” Mohammed told Ibrahim about her knowledge of how the investigation is unfolding and informed him that police want to speak to her they discussed the quality of three suspect images released by police She told him to “get out of the city” and “lay low,” and said she had his jeans and belt tucked away and that his hooded sweatshirt is “gone.” A response back: “Make sure your deleting all your texts Mohammed also assured Ibrahim that the way the cameras are positioned at the centre This showed “an awareness on her part of Ibrahim’s involvement in the shooting,” the synopsis says “Big breath babe,” she texted Ibrahim “I can’t see s—- from that video.” telling the officers she did not know the “guy who came in for wound care.” At the same time she reassured Ibrahim in text messages that she would tell police she knew nothing and that he could not be identified in a billboard about the case Their relationship continued in the weeks that followed she rented an Airbnb in Pickering where they spent the night together she continued to deny any knowledge of Ibrahim Her sentencing hearing is set for March 28 The prosecution and defence did not indicate their positions on punishment except to note that it will be a contested hearing the Crown will withdraw three other charges: two counts of attempting to obstruct justice and accessory after the fact to robbery the Ontario government passed the Community Care and Recovery Act It is set to go into effect at the end of March It introduces new zoning restrictions that require the safe injection sites to be located at least 200 metres from schools and daycare centres The premier has called safe injection sites a “failed policy” experiment that has created dangerous conditions near homes and schools Staff members at The Works received layoff notices despite board of health vote earlier this Last week, a Toronto social service agency announced it is suing the Ontario government, claiming its new legislation violates the Charter and that removing the sites will “deprive people of lifesaving care.” A sharps box outside of South Riverdale Community Health Centre one of the safe injection sites the Ford government is closing Two reports commissioned by the provincial Health Ministry and posted online this week affirm the community value of safe consumption and harm reduction The Ford government had two provincially commissioned reports strongly urging continued safe drug consumption services at a Queen Street East health centre when it announced rules that will halt the service and close nine other such sites across Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones referred to the July 2023 gunfire slaying of a Leslieville mother outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre while announcing the changes Tuesday citing a need to especially protect children She did not mention the studies she has received in recent months that affirm the community value of safe consumption and harm reduction Premier Doug Ford had voiced strong opposition to allowing supervised drug use with medical supports to reverse possible overdose and expose users to treatment options and other health services before Jones revealed that any such sites within 200 metres of a school or child-care centre must close by March 31 Four more of Toronto’s 10 sites are set to shut after the stray-bullet slaying of Karolina (Caroline) Huebner-Makurat on Queen Street Jones’s ministry ordered a review of the South Riverdale site and its safe consumption services by Jill Campbell the centre’s provincially appointed supervisor plus an external review by Unity Health Toronto “as a means of identifying opportunities for improvement.” Both reviews concluded that safe consumption should continue but with improved community safety supports to address concerns of neighbouring residents, businesses and child-care providers about violence After five months of research, a review team from Unity Health, a hospital network affiliated with the University of Toronto, ”found a clear need for the (safe consumption) service at 955 Queen Street East based on the number of clients being serviced and the broad range of health services clients are accessing via referrals and integrated services in the community health centre … “It is suitable to maintain funding,” for the supervised consumption service The centre had 11,858 total visits for supervised drug use between September 2022 and September 2023 centre staff reversed more than 100 potentially fatal overdoses they referred at least 165 clients to other services in the building such as a dietitian and mental health supports Unity Health also concluded that health centre managers had been only “somewhat responsive to local community concerns with room for improvement” when it came to security around the site and communications with community members who had raised concerns before Huebner-Makurat’s slaying triggered community outrage and public calls for closure The report notes that the health centre did take steps to address concerns following the passerby’s death including expanded sweeps to pick up discarded needles increasing outreach to Toronto police and improving exterior lighting Recommendations include hiring a licensed security firm to provide better protection around the site improved communication with local community members including regular open houses improved use of security cameras and establishing an “ongoing formal avenue of communication” with Toronto police that “could help build relationships and address ongoing community and staff safety concerns.” which include a public school and several child-care facilities reported a long list of concerns such as intoxicated people outside the centre acting belligerent and making threats people defecating and urinating in public nearby Some centre visitors in turn complained they had been needlessly harassed and photographed by residents said Wednesday that the network is pleased with $378 million announced by Jones for “Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment” hubs that include addiction and treatment beds — but no safe consumption facilities or harm reduction materials such as needle exchange safe injection kits or safe inhalation kits “we are concerned about the reduction in access to supervised consumption reduces pressure on emergency services and helps connect people to treatment,” she added “We will continue to work closely with our community and government partners Toronto paramedics respond to an average of six suspected overdose deaths per week and 87 non-fatal overdose calls, according to city data The April 2024 report by Campbell, a former Centre for Addiction and Mental Health executive concluded: “Evidence shows that consumption treatment services are a necessary public health service implemented to save lives and prevent accidental overdose death related to substance abuse.” she urged the government to expand harm reduction services including safe consumption to “prevent further accidental substance-use death and provide additional safer treatment options for substance users across the spectrum of substance illness.” Campbell’s other recommendations include the health ministry providing extra funding to sites close to schools and child-care centres for extra security officers and look at expanding the 15-metre zone around the centre where staff regularly search for discarded needles but said some residents assumed that anyone doing anything objectionable near the centre was associated with it A Leslieville social media account wrongly reported needles being found in a daycare playground when police reported they were in a private driveway next door “Although facts don’t always change feelings and mental illness since the pandemic has played a major factor in the experiences of the South Riverdale community and likely other neighbourhoods in Toronto,” Campbell concluded adding the centre was established to serve the “weak and underserved” and should do so in collaboration with the surrounding community could not be reached for comment Wednesday parents and families across Ontario have made it clear that the presence of drug consumption sites near schools is leading to serious safety problems She added that “yesterday’s actions will help protect the public especially for our most vulnerable: Ontario’s children” and said police statistics show elevated crime around the sites Sign in Join now This article was first published by TorontoToday The future of 10 supervised consumption sites across Ontario — including five in Toronto — could be decided next week.  lawyers representing one Toronto site will argue the provincial government’s bill to shutter facilities within 200 metres of schools and child care centres violates rights to life liberty and security of the person under the Canadian Charter.  The suit was launched in December by The Neighbourhood Group a privately funded supervised consumption site that has operated in Kensington Market since 2018 and two Ontarians who have used supervised consumption services.  the provincial government passed the Community Care and Recovery Act which forces the 10 sites near schools and child care centres to close on March 31.  The group also asked the court for an injunction to prevent the sites from closing.  “Without supervised consumption services people who use drugs will be exposed to substantially increased risk of death and will be left to face those risks alone,” the group said in a Dec a judge will hear arguments on the injunction and the broader issues under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms The applicants are seeking an injunction “basically right away” to ensure the sites don’t close and to “give the judge more time to think about the constitutional issues,” said DJ Larkin executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition who was granted intervenor status in the case Toronto’s Board of Health is also an intervenor.  Larkin said getting one could prove difficult. “Injunctions are really hard to get against legislation,” they said.  Judges follow a three-part test when deciding whether to grant an injunction.  the applicant must prove they have a serious case that could succeed at trial they must prove that closing the sites represents an “irreparable harm.” “Irreparable harm means something that you can't reverse something that can't be compensated with money,” Larkin said the type of harm that would be argued is that people could die if these services shut down.”  is proving the harm faced by the applicants outweighs the government’s interest in passing legislation.   “There's a presumption that governments are acting in good faith that they're acting in the best interest when they pass a law,” Larkin said “The starting presumption is that governments are acting in the best interests of people.”  government “hadn't brought evidence to prove that they needed this law right away even if you're acting in the best interest in this case we should put a temporary hold,” Larkin said.  Given the precedent and evidence in the Ontario case No one has died at a safe consumption site in Canada despite the thousands of overdose deaths across the country, according to federal statistics.  That means there is "a good argument” to maintain the status quo “Do not force services to close until we can find a better path and decide if this law is constitutional,” they said “It's a steep hill but the evidence really does demonstrate that there’s a good chance.” The injunction will be decided shortly after the case wraps on March 26 because the sites are slated to close on March 31 “could take weeks or months,” Larkin said.  the case could also be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada it could pass a new bill and invoke the notwithstanding clause to override any constitutional issues.  In January, Health Minister Sylvia Jones outlined a $500 million program to open 27 new addiction recovery centres instead, including four in Toronto.  "Parents are worried about the discarded needles that their children could pick up. Some parents no longer feel comfortable sending their children to the local elementary school or have pulled them out of their local daycare," Jones said in August when she first outlined the government’s plan.  Despite the possibility of an injunction, one Toronto site announced it will close ahead of the March 31 deadline.  According to posts on the South Riverdale Community Health Centre’s website, staffing pressures forced the site to cease operations on Friday. OTTAWA — Set to close under new Ontario legislation nine supervised drug consumption sites will soon become new homelessness and addiction treatment centres Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada Don't have an account? Create Account the shooting galleries-turned-HART (Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment) hubs are located in Toronto Ontario is spending $378 million to open 19 HART hubs across the province Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a statement issued Thursday “We have heard loud and clear from families across Ontario that drug injection sites near schools and child-care centres are making our communities less safe,” Jones said which banned supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres — an attempt to mitigate rampant crime violence and anti-social behaviour that’s become common around these sites Leslieville’s contentious South Riverdale Community Health Centre was the site of last summer’s shooting death of 44-year-old mother Karolina Huebner-Makurat an innocent pedestrian killed by a stray bullet during a gunfight between drug dealers Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond The next issue of Your Midday Sun will soon be in your inbox while a second charge of obstructing justice was withdrawn Court heard she was in a relationship with one of the accused shooters who was treated by a nurse inside the Leslieville shooting gallery before being given an Uber ride away from the crime scene Mohammed also helped Ibrahim find a place in Pickering to lay low during the investigation South Riverdale is one of the four Toronto community health centres chosen for the transition as well as Regent Park at Dundas and Parliament Parkdale Queen West at Bathurst and Richmond and at Toronto Public Health at Dundas and Victoria All provincially-funded sites were able to submit an application to become a HART hub which the province expects to be operational by the end of March — the date the now-outlawed consumption sites were set to close Locations for the other 10 sites will be announced in the coming weeks While praising the province for funding the HART Hub destined for her riding of Kitchener Centre Green Party Deputy Leader Aislinn Clancy said the new centres won’t end the province’s overdose issue “I’m grateful that our Kitchener community will be receiving funding for the creation of a HART Hub But I want to be clear that the Ford government’s harm reduction cuts are going to claim lives,” she said in a statement “People are not going to stop using drugs simply because we take harm reduction services away or threaten jail time When CTS (Consumption and Treatment Services) sites close we’re only going to see more public drug use more infectious disease spread and more drug poisonings showing up in our ERs.” While the new sites will not provide drugs to clients nor will they supervise consumption or provide needles “HART Hubs will also add an estimated 375 highly supportive housing units in addition to addiction recovery and treatment beds that will help thousands of people each year transition to more stable long-term housing,” Jones said in her statement HART Hubs are eligible for four times the funding provided to them when they operated as shooting galleries as well as a one-time grant for start-up costs This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy The fallout from the announced closure of ten supervised injection sites in Ontario within 200 metres of schools and daycares on Tuesday was as swift as it was predictable Amid the accusations of bloodlust hurled at Leslieville parents growing weary of people threatening to burn their house down rape their children or shoot someone’s mother in cold blood harm reduction activists were taking a very wide detour around new injection site crime statistics unveiled as part of the health minister’s announcement Multiple police departments and Ontario’s solicitor general revealed that those who live close to injection sites report 113 per cent more assaults than neighbourhoods without them not to mention 76 per cent more break and enters While looking for something — anything — with which to splatter more blood on our provincial government the CBC ran a story on Wednesday about how two reviews the Ontario Ministry of Health had commissioned last fall into the site I live across the street from the South Riverdale Community Health Centre had been “quietly posted online” the day of the health minister’s big announcement both of which I had participated in to some extent it was going to refer to a local mother of two named Karolina Huebner-Makurat who was fatally shot when two drug dealers outside the site allegedly tried to rob a third dealer and guns were drawn on July 7 Most of my neighbours were sufficiently immersed in the breathtaking mismanagement of the South Riverdale site to be concerned when Unity Health was chosen to conduct the third-party review in October was instrumental in conducting the research that laid the foundation for the first supervised injection sites to open in Toronto in 2017 We’d expected something a little more arm’s length We also expected any review to provide a deep dive into the currently unknown details about the death of Huebner-Makurat — the critical incident in question between the centre and the alleged shooters Why was one of the alleged shooters seen entering South Riverdale the day of the shooting Had the site’s employees expressed concerns about drug dealers outside the site was charged a little more than a month after Huebner-Makurat’s death with aiding and abetting one of the alleged shooters Mohammed’s name is nowhere to be found in any of the reports Those most impacted by the site’s unintended but foreseeable consequences also expected the report to provide some kind of explanation for why leadership of the site ignored the many safety concerns of its neighbours concerns that stretched back years prior to the shooting Why was the site’s relationship with police “broken,” according to the local superintendent after the shooting we naively hoped some form of accountability would present itself the godfather of supervised injection in Toronto produced what one of my neighbours accurately calls a “community satisfaction survey as filtered through the self-styled lens of public health.”  the provincially appointed supervisor who oversaw the site for six months was a monumental disappointment (except for the part in which she disclosed that when harm reduction employees use the word “community,” they mean drug users and clients only) a handful of times between December and April Campbell openly acknowledged to me and other neighbours the mismanagement of the centre and the profound mistrust it created with the surrounding community begins by wondering aloud how marginalized people are going to pay for coffee at the café across the street from the site that doesn’t accept cash (partly as a result of rampant drug-fuelled theft) quotes Mahatma Gandhi and chides residents with security cameras for violating some vague city privacy bylaw because they’d sent site management photographs of clients buying and using drugs on South Riverdale property never acknowledging that homicide detectives used footage from these same security cameras to identify the wanted shooters a harm reduction employee at South Riverdale for six years Riley’s account included stunning revelations: that drug dealers had quickly wormed their way inside the site after it first opened to sell to clients from the comfort of the injection site booths and that staff with “lived experience” regularly used drugs and sometimes overdosed at work Even though Campbell met with Riley in person Riley’s name and shocking allegations are nowhere to be found in Campbell’s report to the ministry Without alerting readers to its own self-interest in the continued existence of the very sites for which it planted and watered the seeds years ago, Unity Health clarified that this, my neighbourhood’s most desired change, conveniently quarantined in a separate document, would not be included in the recommendations of its main report. No wonder Doug Ford took a pass.  LocalNews‘Our work is never done’: East Toronto supervised consumption site closes its doors amid shift in Ontario drug policy By Joanna LavoieOpens in new windowPublished: March 21, 2025 at 8:35AM EDT Twitter feed ©2025 BellMedia All Rights Reserved As our keepSIX consumption and treatment service closes March 21, 2025, we remain dedicated to harm reduction and access to equitable health care. If you or someone you know needs support related to social services or housing, make the right call. Call 211. pic.twitter.com/ov2884P6yF This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. there is some very interesting manoeuvring going on in harm reduction circles The injection site that I live across the street from in the South Riverdale Community Health Centre The province has given South Riverdale and the other nine sites being closed for being within 200 metres of schools and daycares until March 31 The South Riverdale site may not even have that long For any injection site in Canada to operate it must apply to Health Canada to receive an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act which still considers the street drug most often injected at such sites South Riverdale’s exemption expires on Nov supervised injection services cannot lawfully be carried out South Riverdale waited for the government of Doug Ford to weigh in on the future of the site before applying to renew its federal exemption South Riverdale has advised that it not only plans to apply to extend its exemption from Nov it’s reportedly confident that Health Canada will approve it the province also announced that none will be permitted to open in a new location and no new sites will be allowed While addressing a room full of law enforcement leaders from across North America the premier made a specific reference to his recent decision to close 10 “unsafe injection sites,” which he claimed are nothing but magnets for drug dealers who cause harm and chaos to neighbourhoods the exemption expiry for a site in Ottawa operated by Ottawa Inner City Health called The Trailer is on Sept The Trailer is one of three injection sites located in the very same Ottawa ward None of the three are within 200 metres of schools or daycares Rideau-Vanier will be home to 43 per cent of the province’s injection sites I reached out to the city councillor for Rideau-Vanier to see if she had any insight into how The Trailer had demonstrated community support an important requirement of the application process who claims to have more injection sites than any other ward or riding in the country No one had informed her that The Trailer’s federal drug law exemption was about to expire Plante sent an email to the CEO of Ottawa Inner City Health asking if they had applied to Health Canada to renew their exemption Plante also sent an email to Jeremy Proulx the Director of Parliamentary Affairs for the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Plante explained that Ottawa Inner City Health had not notified or consulted key stakeholders in her ward about The Trailer’s exemption deadline or application to renew — not the Ottawa police the local Business Improvement Area and community association nearby schools and daycares or even the staff at the shelter that rents the site its space she formally requested that Minister Saks issue a notice that would trigger a 60-day community engagement process through Health Canada something that the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act gives the minister the power to do If Health Canada and Ottawa Inner City Health were hoping to renew the site’s exemption under virtual cover of night it was too late — Plante got the sun to rise a little earlier than expected I sent about a dozen queries to both Minister Saks’ office and Jennifer Saxe the Health Canada official who oversees its Orwellian-named exemption directorate I asked questions such as: Why did The Trailer site in Ottawa not conduct transparent outreach with all the stakeholders listed by Councillor Plante And: Will the minister or Health Canada agree to Plante’s request and order a 60-day community engagement period And: Given the mounting evidence of crime and disorder outside of these sites is it wise to leave it to the sites alone in their renewal applications to represent the views of those raising children and running businesses nearby I heard back from Health Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson who issued a brief statement that answered precisely none of my questions Health Canada’s Jennifer Saxe did confirm to Plante that The Trailer had indeed submitted an application to renew its exemption Saxe also disclosed that because injection sites have requirements for community engagement “the Ministerial authority to give notice for consultation has never been used.” “How are residents (housed and unhoused) supposed to know about the renewal if no one is informed or consulted?” Plante asked it’s not indicated on your website that (The Trailer) has reapplied It’s no wonder that the leadership at South Riverdale feels confident that Health Canada will rubber-stamp their forthcoming renewal application in spite of the site’s well-documented failure to communicate with its surrounding community a local mother’s death and charges being laid against one of the site’s employees for allegedly aiding and abetting one of the shooters in his escape from the scene an outreach firm that South Riverdale hired a year ago to survey the immediate neighbourhood reported in a meeting with various stakeholders that the more than 230 residents and business owners it spoke to were near unanimous in their feeling that the injection site needed to either move or close South Riverdale is so confident Health Canada will come through for it, that it recently distributed its own online survey, which it intends to use in its renewal application even though the survey makes no mention of the exemption at all. The survey questions have little to do with crime and disorder; it has a distinct “how are you possibly going to get by without us?” vibe. South Riverdale’s survey elicited a flurry of truth bombs from my neighbours. “(You) have been given ample opportunity to engage with the community in a thoughtful and authentic manner,” one wrote. “So it feels a bit late to be asking all of the same questions again.” This is a lesson Health Canada has apparently already learned — there is no point in asking questions you don’t want to hear the answers to. shortly after the gunfight that killed Karolina Huebner-Makurat one of the safe injection sites the Ford government closed due to its proximity to schools I don't want people to die if their misery can be eased But I no longer trust the very essence of these sites Based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno ” … just know I’m here for you babes.” In her professional capacity, Khalila Mohammed was a community harm-reduction health worker she was an agent of profound harm and an accessory to manslaughter one not-so-impetuous act of aiding and abetting on top of another By doing so, she put the lie to the theory, advocated by activists and professed health experts, that unrestricted safe-injection sites are sanctuaries that mitigate the harm for vulnerable drug addicts a benign service staffed by trustworthy individuals posing no threat to the surrounding neighbourhood She also put the final nail in the coffin — despite lawsuits and staged die-ins — for a purported health-driven practice that has taken neighbourhoods hostage So much so that even the great many who are fundamentally opposed to Premier Doug Ford’s policies — I count myself among them — have applauded the Conservative government’s Community Care and Recovery Act which limits where injection sites can be located — specifically at least 200 metres from schools and daycare centres what were they doing in the vicinity in the first place “Like I told you benji you’re special and I don’t say that typa sh—- to just anyone I wanna be there for you and by your side.” while 44-year-old mother of two Karolina Huebner-Makurat lay bleeding out on the pavement near the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Leslieville hit by a stray bullet in an exchange of gunfire by alleged drug dealers Mohammed was primarily occupied with collaborating in the hiding and the escaping who would shortly thereafter become her lover put him into an Uber that she ordered on her account urged him to lie low and provided him with Percocet pills Video evidence shows Mohammed exiting the side door of the clinic before the shooting starts She ran toward the three men involved in an altercation Mohammed turns around and runs back inside Mohammed opens the side door and ushers him in she provides medical assistance to Ibrahim He’s next seen on video being escorted out of the building by Mohammed and they walk through the neighbourhood together Ahmed Ibrahim was not a stranger to Mohammed all drug dealers according to a synopsis of events submitted in court regularly frequented the parkette next to the health centre openly selling their goods and talking about guns in conversations overheard by staff had allegedly threatened to kill Mohammed in a text sent three days before the shooting accusing her of working with his “opps” — believed to be a reference to Ibrahim and a third man Ahmed Ali — following the purported robbery of Hudson Staff turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to all of it as alleged by a former employee in a subsequent story in the National Post: staff drinking on the job the unwillingness to keep drug dealers away from the supervised injection site; indeed dealers occupying injection booths all day long But Mohammed told Ibrahim — whom she calls Ben or Benji — about the death threat Their relationship “blossomed,” as police put it in the days that followed the killing of Huebner-Makurat assuring him that his face was not visible on video promising she wouldn’t reveal his involvement to investigators They don’t know about you and won’t I can’t see s—- from that video.” What she told investigators when interviewed was that she’d treated a random client who’d been wounded had no knowledge of this “Ben” person no contact with the individual after the event and had no idea how he might be reached But she was updating Ibrahim continually on what she knew about the state of the investigation drawing ever closer in their folie à deux until finally spending the night together at an Airbnb she rented in Pickering Was South Riverdale Health Centre — long the source of community complaints and warnings from residents about open drug use and escalating crime — an aberration I live not 50 metres from a supervised injection site What happens inside is of no concern to me I don’t object out of hand to such facilities But what happens outside is a menace and that does matter to everybody in the neighbourhood it is not among the five Toronto consumption sites ordered shut by the province by March 31 many of these sites amount to what Ford correctly described as a failed experiment a view now somewhat shared by his ideological counterpart who earlier this year significantly reversed a cutting-edge health care approach that decriminalized possession and use of small quantities of drugs including heroin The public backlash from afflicted communities had been overwhelming But supervised injection sites are still plentiful in the province — Vancouver alone has 50 of them I don’t want people to die if their misery can be eased and pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the shooting of Huebner-Makurat and obstruction of justice Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for March “I f—-ing hate cops so much.” Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details Nine overdose prevention or safe consumption sites will transition into recovery treatment centres Last year, the province announced legislation that would close 10 supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and licensed child-care centres the province announced nine safe consumption sites will become Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs Each provincially funded site could submit a proposal to transition to a HART Hub and all nine applications have now been approved “The new HART Hubs will give people struggling with addiction the support and treatment services they need to achieve lasting recovery,” said Michael Tibollo Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions The privately funded Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site will not become a hub said the province was listening to families who feel consumption sites make communities less safe “Through these nine new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hubs part of our government’s $378 million investment to create a total of 19 hubs across the province we are taking the next step in our plan to keep communities safe while improving access to mental health and addictions services,” Jones said The ban on safe consumption sites came after the killing of Karolina Huebner-Makurat in Leslieville near South Riverdale Community Health Centre at 955 Queen St E. Huebner-Makurat was hit by a stray bullet shortly after noon on July 7 2023 as a fight broke out between three alleged drug dealers South Riverdale Community Health Centre is one of the nine sites slated to transition to a HART Hub Regent Park Community Health Centre at 465 Dundas St E.; and Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre at 168 Bathurst St Toronto Public Health and several City of Toronto Divisions are also proposing to establish a HART Hub Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site run by the Neighbourhood Group Community Services agency is set to close by March 31. Last month, The Neighbourhood Group Community Services agency launched a legal challenge to fight the closure of safe sites the organization’s president and CEO “The research and the experts prove that supervised consumption sites make a positive difference both for the individuals we meet and for their whole neighbourhood,” Sinclair said the nine approved safe consumption sites will be transitioned to HART Hubs Other sites slated to become HART Hubs include Hamilton’s Urban Core Community Health Centre at 430 Cannon St E.; Guelph Community Health Centre at 176 Wyndham St N.; Norwest Community Health Centre at 212 Miles St Thunder Bay; Somerset West Community Health Centre at 55 Eccles St. Ottawa; and Community Healthcaring Kitchener-Waterloo at 44 Francis St Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath said she was pleased to see approval for the hub in Hamilton this Hub will provide meaningful support to Hamilton’s most vulnerable residents,” Horwath said For more on Ontario’s plan, see the website here. For more information on safe consumption sites across Canada see the federal government page here. Lead photo: Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre Subscribe to INsauga – Ontario Headline News’ daily email newsletter for a chance to win a $100 gift card to Toronto Eaton Centre OR Sherway Gardens The Ontario government initiated a third-party review of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in east Toronto after a 44-year-old mother of two was killed by a stray bullet outside of the site last July.Chris Young/The Canadian Press Ontario is set to unveil its new approach to supervised drug consumption sites after a shooting outside a Toronto facility last summer prompted the province to launch a review and impose a moratorium on new locations Health Minister Sylvia Jones is expected to announce the update Tuesday at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Ottawa an annual meeting for the province’s 444 municipalities to address key issues they are facing – including homelessness Harm-reduction measures such as supervised consumption sites are crucial to saving lives, and government-imposed restrictions to them can be fatal, health advocates say. Known as consumption and treatment services sites in Ontario, they allow people to bring in and use illicit drugs under supervision to prevent overdoses or spread of infectious diseases But they have also been under increased scrutiny across the country over their safety impact on surrounding communities. Premier Doug Ford said earlier this month that he’s “not sold” on the sites calling them a “haven for drug dealers” and said he wants more detox treatment beds instead Last summer, Ontario launched a review of the province’s 17 sites The government also initiated a third-party review of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in east Toronto after a 44-year-old mother of two was killed by a stray bullet outside of the site last July the province said it was pausing the funding and approval of new sites while the reviews were under way The government has promised more “accountability measures,” a focus on safety and increased obligations to communities a group of the leaders of the province’s 29 largest cities representing about 70 per cent of the population launched a new public campaign to call for expanded predictable funding from both provincial and federal governments to tackle homelessness called the situation an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis.” She and her fellow mayors say the scale of the problem requires much more money and much more action. Without it, she said, more homeless people will die on the streets and residents won’t feel safe in parks and downtowns across the province More than 2,500 people now die of drug overdoses a year in Ontario alone said in an e-mail Monday that the Big City Mayors group does not have a position on supervised consumption sites but is “very interested” in details of the announcement chief executive officer of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario said she is aware the government’s announcement is coming Tuesday She said she hopes the province funds all of the sites that currently exist – including ones that have had to close their doors owing to lack of funding in places such as Sudbury and Windsor – and invests more money in wraparound services for initiatives such as housing and mental-health supports “The reality is people will not quit using substances because we don’t have safe consumption sites What we will have is more people using in the streets we will have more needles that are infected we will have more people dying from toxic drugs,” Ms executive director of the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre which operates two consumption treatment sites in Toronto said she’s seen an increase in people using the services as a result of increased toxicity in the drug supply Robertson said there’s also been an increase in opposition to the sites among residential communities and businesses that are concerned about discarded paraphernalia and safety issues She said there are also community concerns about a lack of shelter beds and housing which has escalated since the COVID-19 pandemic She said she’s worried there will be even more restrictions on the sites after the province’s review she said there were 766 overdoses at her sites which could have led to hundreds of deaths If the government adds further restrictions to services she said that could lead to funding concerns “If we aren’t able to comply with security measures that may be identified then what does that mean for the service?” Ms adding there may also be new restrictions on locations “If these services are de-funded and are closed then what we know will happen is that people will die Laura Stone is a reporter for The Globe and Mail's Queen's Park bureau reporting on federal politics in the Ottawa Parliamentary bureau until October 2018 she was an online and TV reporter for Global News in Ottawa Laura was the first recipient of the Michelle Lang award at the Calgary Herald where she wrote a national series about women’s prisons she won the Canadian Journalism Foundation’s Greg Clark Award which allowed her inside the RCMP’s Senate investigation Laura likes to profile politicians over lunch focus on treatmentAnnouncement to come Tuesday in a speech from Health Minister Sylvia Jones to conference of municipal leaders The Ford government is closing several so-called safe drug consumption sites near schools across the province and investing in new centres focused on treatment and support services We apologize, but this video has failed to load.Try refreshing your browser, ortap here to see other videos from our team.Play VideoArticle contentThe announcement will be made Tuesday afternoon in a speech from Health Minister Sylvia Jones to a gathering of municipal leaders won’t be allowed within 200 metres of a school This change will see 10 sites close in Ottawa Kitchener and Toronto no later than March 31 That means the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Toronto will have to close its consumption site The SRCHC became a source of controversy last summer after Karolina Huebner-Makurat was shot and killed by stray bullets after a gunfight broke out in a parkette adjacent to the consumption site Huebner-Makurat had simply been walking down the street when the bullets hit her After hosting a consumption site and being chosen by the Trudeau government in Ottawa to host a so-called safe supply site where drugs are handed out for free the SRCHC became a magnet for drug dealers People getting their supply of supposedly safe drugs at the centre would sell or trade them to the dealers for a hit of more potent The Ford government points to the rise in crime around these centres as a reason some will close and others will change to focus on treatment and support services In areas surrounding the sites in Toronto, the government reports that assaults are up 113% and robbery up 97%. Reports of violent crime are up 195% near sites in Hamilton when compared to the rest of the city while in Ottawa they are up 250% compared to the rest of the city. These centres were sold as a way to connect addicts with treatment when they were ready to kick the habit. That hasn’t happened and instead we’ve seen higher crime and activists running these centres who aren’t interested in treatment. While provincial regulations demand that such sites offer users a path to treatment, most if not all have stopped viewing the act of offering treatment as judgmental. At the SRCHC, its website openly stated that the organization had, “No judgement, no expectations and no desire for people to stop using drugs.” That philosophy was proudly displayed on its website and on printed material until after last year’s tragic shooting and the twisted philosophy was published in this newspaper publication. Sadly, Toronto’s SRCHC wasn’t alone and the view that taking hard drugs is an acceptable lifestyle choice, even for people clearly struggling, permeated throughout the system. On Tuesday, Jones will announce that the province will invest $378 million in 19 locations that they are calling “Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs.” These hubs will include what the province describes as 375 “highly supportive housing units” as well as addiction recovery and treatment beds. The government says that since these sites are focused on treatment, they will not be offering the “safer” supply model pushed by the federal government. In addition to wellness and treatment programs, the Ford government says they will be putting a new emphasis on prevention to try and stop people from becoming addicted in the first place. This is a welcome move given how far we have gone down the harm reduction rabbit hole. The four pillars of drug policy in Canada have long been prevention, enforcement, harm reduction and treatment. For the past several years, the other three pillars have been ignored with all emphasis put on harm reduction. Given the way we’ve been practicing harm reduction, it’s been more like aiding and abetting addicts instead of offering them compassionate care. These moves will be welcomed by many mayors, including in communities where some sites will be closing. Others will rail against these changes but ask them, what have they done to support treatment beyond giving people free drugs and a place to use them? Toronto police are searching for at least one suspect after a shooting in the city’s Riverdale neighbourhood late Friday evening Officers were called to the Jones Avenue and Strathcona Avenue area Police say they located two male youths with injuries One victim needed urgent care and was transported to a hospital via an emergency run The other victim was also brought to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries A third teen was located a short while later with a non-life threatening gunshot wound Officers believe the suspects fled in a vehicle No descriptions were immediately available While many of the houses and apartments in Toronto’s South Riverdale have been around for decades planning is underway in the Port Lands for two massive new communities where homes haven’t existed before The area around the Port Lands has changed drastically in recent years, including the expansion of the Don River and bringing nature to a previously paved-over part of Toronto Jed Kilbourn, the director of development planning with Waterfront Toronto is helping lead the efforts of developing what is now a massive island “It’s one of these dream projects that you get to work on that really engages with the city as a whole,” Kilbourn said “Villiers Island is going to be home to about 15,000 people so we’re looking at about 9,000 units.” With that many people in what is now an industrial area a community centre — all of these things that would help build a complete community,” he said Referencing development on the Toronto Waterfront east of Yonge Street Kilbourn noted it took around 20 years for that vision to be mostly realized He said the development of Villiers Island won’t happen quicker “We’re looking at a 20-to-25-year plan for the island over the next little while We’re aiming to have the first units being occupied in 2031 but moving forward it’s going to be a rollout of development across the waterfront,” Kilbourn said The work to date has been focused on minimizing flooding as consultation continues There’s also a call for designs to build the sustainable infrastructure needed to support it all “We lead with landscape … We’d love to see more timber A lot of it has to do with planting strategies looking at more opportunities to harness rainwater more opportunities for passive irrigation really prioritizing active transit and pedestrian and pedestrian mobility,” he shared Kilbourn said the name “Villiers Island” is just a placeholder and consultations on renaming the area as well as many of its public spaces will occur at some point in the future A second community nearly as large, dubbed the McCleary District is also planned for the area just southeast of where the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway meet Scott Pennington, the vice-president of Port Lands management with CreateTO — the agency responsible for managing and developing city lands said the parcel of land involved isn’t a common find in Toronto “Very rarely do you find an opportunity like this of this scale that is primarily under public control or public ownership,” he said “There’s been no residential development south of Lake Shore in the Port Lands historically so this is all kind of uncharted terrain.” While it’s currently mostly brownfields Early renderings sparked criticisms about streets being too wide and lacking density but I think what we have to acknowledge first and foremost is that the streets really have to do some heavy lifting when we think about a new master plan community like this,” Pennington said “Our roadways are incorporating bioswales or other natural planting areas that all takes space we want to make sure that we’re in we’re creating enough area for public realm uses Pennington said planning needs to take those uses into account too CreateTO will be holding a public meeting on the McCleary District plan on Sept The meeting will happen at the Ralph Thornton Community Centre and the doors open at 6:30 p.m “The engagement that we’re having on the 18th is a critical touch point but it’s not the last time we’d be speaking to the public on the plans for the district,” he said Pennington and Kilbourn both said the developments could have 20 to 30 per cent of the units designated as affordable housing When asked about the definition of “affordable,” specifics on potential pricing weren’t provided since it hasn’t been decided “We recognize that there’s a housing crisis,” Kilbourn said “We want … to make sure that the communities that we’re building can adequately address that crisis.” Another question remains about the existing congestion on major east-west routes such as Lake Shore Boulevard East which is expected to worsen when thousands of residents move to the area planning is underway to preserve corridors for potential TTC streetcar extensions currently under construction and expected to be completed in the early 2030s The East Harbour transit hub will serve as a stop for the Ontario Line and for GO Transit trains The Ontario Line will also have Riverside-Leslieville station at Queen Street East We are currently developing a Precinct Plan for McCleary District and we want to hear from you McCleary District is envisioned as a dense, transit-oriented, complete mixed-use community and a hub of activity that will change the makeup of the Port Lands. This district will… pic.twitter.com/fsVWMKCgld — CreateTO (@_CreateTO) September 5, 2024 Two Ontario government-commissioned reports recommended keeping existing drug consumption sites open across the province increasing funding to stabilize staffing and hiring permanent security guards to boost safety but the health minister decided against that guidance.  Instead, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced this week that the government would ban supervised consumption sites near schools and prohibit new ones from opening in the future with the premier defending the move on Wednesday The province is shifting to a treatment-focused model as it moves away from supervised consumption The new rules will mean the closure of 10 such consumption sites across Ontario Two reviews released by the province this week suggested a number of ways to improve community safety in the sites but Jones cited higher crime rates and concerns from neighbours and parents as a reason to do away with supervised consumption sites near schools The changes came after the province initiated several reviews of its 17 consumption and treatment service sites following the killing of a bystander near a Toronto site Karolina Huebner-Makurat had been walking through her southeast Toronto neighbourhood of Leslieville shortly after noon on July 7 when she was shot as a fight broke out between three alleged drug dealers the former chief nursing executive at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to take over the operations of The South Riverdale Community Health Centre near where Huebner-Makurat was shot.  Campbell filed a report to the province that included a number of recommendations on how to proceed with consumption and treatment service sites Campbell recommended expansion of harm reduction and safer supply of drugs “to prevent further accidental substance-use death and provide additional safer treatment options for substance users across the spectrum of substance illness.” She also recommended the province provide funding for security guards at sites that are located within 200 metres of schools and that the government give more money to the sites to recruit and retain staff Campbell further recommended an expansion of treatment beds “Evidence shows that consumption treatment services are a necessary public health service implemented to save lives and prevent accidental overdose death related to substance use,” Campbell wrote including the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario have warned of deaths as a result of shutting down supervised consumption sites Premier Doug Ford’s government introduced the consumption and treatment services model in 2018 saying it would focus on connecting people to treatment rather than the previous supervised consumption model the province put in place a cap of 21 such sites in Ontario There are other supervised consumption sites that received federal approval but no provincial funding and two of them in northern Ontario recently closed due to a lack of funds The province also commissioned Unity Health Toronto to review the South Riverdale consumption and treatment site which is embedded in a larger community health centre Unity said “it is suitable to maintain funding” for the consumption and treatment site at South Riverdale and for it to remain integrated within the community health centre “The review team found a clear need for the services at (South Riverdale) based on the number of clients being served and the broad range of health services clients are accessing via referrals and integrated services in the community health centre,” the report said But it did note the concerns voiced by neighbours which go back years before the fatal shooting Residents had complained to the site and police about open drug use There was also poor communication by South Riverdale with local residents and no formal avenue to communicate with Toronto police Unity also discovered security guards hired after the Huebner-Makurat shooting were not trained in de-escalation and non-violent conflict resolution It also found South Riverdale struggled to recruit and retain staff Jones’s office said open drug use should not happen near schools and daycares.  parents and families across Ontario have made it clear that the presence of drug consumption sites near schools and daycares is leading to serious safety problems,” said Alexandra Adamo She said the changes will protect society’s most vulnerable: children Adamo pointed to crime data from Toronto police that she said shows consumption sites within 200 metres of schools have “a marked increase in crime when compared to the rest of the city.” “It’s a failed policy, simple as that,” Ford said of his 2018 policy “We’re making a better policy.” Opioid deaths surged during the COVID-19 pandemic the mortality rate for opioid toxicity hit its peak of 19.3 deaths per 100,000 people data from the Office of the Chief Coroner show the vast majority of which contained fentanyl The mortality rate dropped to 17.5 deaths per 100,000 people Those numbers are significantly worse than pre-pandemic rates that saw 10.7 deaths Ontario’s Chief Medical Office of Health conducted a third review of all the consumption and treatment centres but the province did not release that report The community health centre opens its doors to ease help the mind of the community after recent controversy A business owner near a controversial safe-injection site in Leslieville says the community health centre needs to better manage the program it oversees “I am not opposed to having an injection site,” said Hannah Oh who owns a convenience store across the street “They just need to have better control of the site and clients.” The Consumption and Treatment Service (CTS), located at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC) on Queen Street East near Carlaw Avenue, is “a health service where people inject snort or orally consume pre-obtained drugs in a safe hygienic and welcoming environment under the supervision of trained staff,” according to the centre’s website A class-action lawsuit, filed earlier this year with the Ontario Supreme Court of Justice, claims the safety and quality of the neighbourhood near the CTS has declined significantly since the site opened in 2017 Oh said she’s had people come into her shop that she believes are intoxicated “Sometimes we have people come into the store high on drugs and often cause trouble.” she said “When they are being aggressive towards us Witnessing the shooting in the summer makes it feel incredibly unsafe We also should have more police patrolling the neighbourhood because we have a lot of children.” On July 7, 2023, Karolina Huebner-Makurat by a stray bullet from an attempted robbery that occurred just outside of the SRCHC Toronto Police have also charged one of the staff members of SRCHC Khalila Zara Mohammed with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact to an indictable offense Since the shooting, many have raised safety concerns in the area and pointed blame at the safe injection site for the cause Leslieville resident Jacquline Court and local business JSCS Inc. (Eastside Social) launched the class-action lawsuit against the health centre. The action had not been certified when was made public in the media in February “Given this is a matter that would be before the courts is that South Riverdale Community Health Centre remains focused on both public health and public safety,” SRCHC said in a statement In the aftermath of Huebner-Makurat’s death the group Leslieville Neighbours for Community Safety was formed by residents from the area SRCHC also appointed a committee to make recommendations on how to improve safety SRCHC held an open-house event in early March to expand their outreach to the community and introduce people to the work that is going on there The open house was attended by a Toronto Observer reporter and was one of a series of open-house events put on by the centre Jason Altenberg, the CEO of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre told CBC news “It will help show residents the importance of their (safe-injection site) work which spans beyond harm reduction and into areas like health care and let them know their concerns around safety are taken seriously.” The open house had several stations that explained different programs the community garden and programs for seniors and youth For the harm reduction/needle exchange program the SRCHC said it provides easy access to the tools and information necessary to keep drug users healthy educates the public on drug use and advocates for the rights of drug users SRCHC said the site also provides sterile materials and can assist with injecting so people do not harm themselves The supervised site helps prevent drug users from using alone and there is someone there in case of emergency The medical staff receive training and safety practice with Naloxone administration and oxygen use as revival techniques Naloxone is a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose they are allowed to leave the site if they are able The Queen Street site had more than 10,000 visits for drug consumption in 2022 and more than 5,000 visits in the first half of 2023 Staff have reversed more than 900 overdoses since the site opened in 2017 The goals of safe-consumption sites are to “help prevent overdose deaths facilitate entry into addiction treatment programs reduce the spread of bloodborne infections (e.g. and reduce the strain on emergency medical services,” according to Health Canada The Toronto Observer is an award-winning news organization staffed by journalism students at Centennial College in Toronto, Canada. © The Toronto Observer | Produced by Centennial College journalism students Pierre Poilievre has injected drugs into the federal election campaign The Conservative leader was in Toronto on Sunday morning reacting to a recent court decision keeping drug injection sites near schools and daycares open We apologize, but this video has failed to load.Try refreshing your browser, ortap here to see other videos from our team.Play VideoArticle contentLast December the Ford government in Ontario passed the Community Care and Recovery Act that banned drug consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and daycares The ban was supposed to see 10 sites close with nine of them converted to treatment and recovery centres dedicated to helping addicts kick their habits instead of just managing them took the province to court saying the move violated their Charter rights to life liberty and security of the person and their equality rights An injunction allowing the sites to continue offering drug consumption services was issued last Friday “This and the Liberal policy behind it are a bloody outrage,” Poilievre said in response to the court order 7 Charter rights of children should come first liberty and security of the person means that kids should not be walking around stepping on dirty needles or at risk that an erratic fentanyl addict might lash out and kill a child What about the Charter rights of the beautiful mother who was hit by a stray bullet coming out of a so-called safe consumption site in Toronto just a year ago?” Poilievre asked those rights don’t matter as much as the rights of people struggling with addiction to get government-funded drugs The South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC) — the location of that shooting Poilievre mentioned the one that took the life of Karolina Huebner-Makurat — is one of the locations that was offering drug consumption site services Thanks to the Liberal government in Ottawa it had also become a site for so-called “safer supply” where government-funded opioid pills are handed out It was for that reason that drug dealers were hanging out fighting over turf and engaging in a shootout over customers One of the workers at the SRCHC helping provide those services pleaded guilty last December to being an accessory to the shooting after helping Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim escape after the event Seems they were in a romantic relationship This facility didn’t just employ radicals like Mohammed it was run by radicals who believed they shouldn’t be offering treatment or rehabilitation The centre’s website even informed users that there was no expectations and no desire for people to stop using drugs.” I asked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this morning about a court injunction to keep drug consumption sites open next to schools and daycares in Toronto. pic.twitter.com/4vIXBtIhCZ We were sold on these places that they were a way to help get people into treatment. The activists never believed that; it was a line to get the rest of us to go along. Now, the province is looking to focus on treatment and the activists are fighting them in court. Justice John Callaghan’s ruling won’t be made for some time, he needs to weigh the Charter arguments before him, he said. In the meantime, we can continue to have drug shooting galleries next to schools and daycares. “When I’m prime minister, this Liberal insanity will end,” Poilievre said. “We will put the resources into treatment and recovery so that we can provide rehabilitation, counselling, detox, and we can lift the people up who are struggling with addiction.” He went on to say that under a Mark Carney Liberal government, the insanity will continue. Poilievre noted supporters of radical drug policy — either in Carney’s cabinet, like Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, or running for the Liberals, like Gregor Robertson, the former mayor of Vancouver who pushed for many of the policies that led to British Columbia having the worst opioid addiction crisis in North America. These policies need to end; we need to focus on treatment and recovery. That is what Poilievre says a new Conservative government will do. A class action lawsuit has been filed against the South Riverdale Community Centre roughly seven months after the tragic shooting death of an innocent bystander just meters away from the centre and supervised injection site The lawsuit was prompted by residents who grew increasingly concerned after the death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat The 44-year-old mother of two was walking in the area of Queen Street and Carlaw Avenue around 12:30 p.m when she was struck by a bullet and killed during a gunfight Two people have been arrested and charged in connection to the shooting including a woman who worked as a health worker at the community centre A Canada-wide arrest warrant has been issued for a 19-year-old investigators believe he has fled the country and could be in Somalia The plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice include a nearby resident and business CityNews spoke with a resident who lives across from the centre who says gun violence has been an ongoing issue in the area “It could have been a child that was shot that day,” said Derek Finkle “We’re talking about drug dealers These weren’t the first reports of guns and knives and weapons in South Riverdale on the day Karolina was shot there were other incidents involving weapons in the weeks and months leading up to that.” the community centre says it can’t comment on the matter while it’s before the courts but that it remains focused on public health and safety The fatal shooting is just one of the many incidents cited in the lawsuit Residents in the community say they’ve also experienced public and private nuisances including disorderly conduct and discarded needles along with human waste Files from Caryn Ceolin were used in this report This story was originally published on Nov We are republishing as one of National Post’s best longreads of the year I fought as best I could to keep drug dealers away from the supervised injection site I worked at but it was a battle that came with a price One dealer I had kicked out of the facility came up to me outside and tried to pull my COVID mask off He said he wanted to take a picture of me on his phone so his boss could come and wait for me after work This is one of many disturbing memories that ran through my mind on July 7 as I watched the news on TV I felt numb seeing footage of that familiar stretch of Queen Street East in Leslieville a neighbourhood just east of downtown Toronto now blocked off by police cars and yellow crime-scene tape Three suspected drug dealers had exchanged gunfire after a dispute outside of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre Get a dash of perspective along with the trending news of the day in a very readable format The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox She died on the sidewalk across the street from the health centre South Riverdale still felt like home to me even though I’d stopped working there a year earlier I had met with senior management several times during my years there begging them to help us with the drug dealers operating around the centre – and often selling drugs inside the supervised injection site as well The drug dealers were as emboldened as ever If I’d still been working at South Riverdale that day that could have been me who died on the sidewalk I first heard about the South Riverdale Community Health Centre a decade ago while participating in a women’s group at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre in the west end of the city I saw a flyer for a “peer position,” something I hadn’t heard of before A woman in the support group explained peer work to me It means a position that requires lived experience with the service being offered I did some research and found out that South Riverdale was a leader when it came to harm reduction services It became a goal of mine to work there one day I got a few years of experience as a personal support worker under my belt before I applied for a peer position at South Riverdale in 2016 a drop-in program within South Riverdale at which people can get supplies Not only was I coming out of a horrific domestic situation but I also had lived experience growing up in a household with addiction I was also open about the fact that I had been a victim of sex trafficking when I was fifteen I later had my own struggles with addiction It was a part-time position that offered only a few hours here and there but I decided to go for it – and got the job COUNTERfit is best described as a first step for someone exploring how to maintain whatever they’re doing – drugs being street involved – but doing it in a healthier way South Riverdale had not yet opened its supervised injection site – that would come later One learned quickly at South Riverdale that there was a strict rule not to be violated: protect the drug user at all costs – even if it’s a superior A lot of COUNTERfit’s activity was contained in the first-floor lobby of the health centre The wall was covered with pamphlets and information and the idea was that someone was always there to answer questions was probably the most common form of support we offered The job was just a few hours a week initially I had my personal support work clients and housecleaning jobs to pay the bills There were several people in peer positions in COUNTERfit Being in a peer position technically meant you were supposed to have “lived experience.” Unfortunately some of my fellow peers were still living that experience Which meant these peers were either not showing up for their shifts or showing up in a state that was not exactly optimal for work I was confident that my lived experience was solidly in my distant past at that point I started getting more and more calls at 6:30 in the morning to come in because someone else wasn’t turning up My four to five hours a week turned into three to four days a week very quickly I began seeing myself as an example of what those who were struggling could get to at COUNTERfit: As someone who’d struggled with addiction and came out the other side I felt it was important for people to see a face that represented that there was hope for everyone One of the first things I grappled with at South Riverdale was the fact that clients were regularly coming into the lobby with things they had stolen – groceries packages swiped from the porches of nearby homes – and openly selling them there Very rarely did someone walk in with stolen goods and leave without being able to sell them One staff member regularly paid a client to steal his booze from the local liquor store When I asked a supervisor why this was allowed to happen We don’t see it.” This is one of my earliest memories of how we as staff — and back then the harm reduction staff was off to the side from the rest of the health centre – were instructed to operate by an established code The situation was further complicated by the fact that one manager who oversaw five to 10 people at any given time It also seemed to be okay for a manager to roll joints in the lobby before going on breaks but parents were walking in the front doors of the centre with their kids for doctor’s appointments upstairs I had a nice rapport with South Riverdale’s former CEO who retired right around the time I was starting to confront these things If that relationship had been further along then I might have raised the issue about staff abusing drugs But one learned quickly at South Riverdale that there was a strict rule not to be violated: protect the drug user at all costs – even if it’s a superior This decree was established from my very first day on the job and it applied to those outside the centre as well If someone in the neighbouring community called about wanting discarded needles picked up from a park “We have to go pick up those needles again before the NIMBYs have a bird.” Clients were regularly coming into the lobby with things they had stolen — groceries packages swiped from the porches of nearby homes — and openly selling them there A wall was built up from the very beginning for anyone who worked there Not once did I ever hear someone suggest that we should work together with those who lived in the neighbourhood It didn’t take long to learn another was also using out of her office What I started to understand was that it was impossible for the management in my orbit to right the ship or make things better because everybody had something else on someone I felt that by simply not doing drugs at work — or worse not doing drugs with clients at work — I became a threat to my co-workers I applied for a position as a client support worker for harm reduction when it was announced that the supervised injection site was coming to South Riverdale in late 2017 was not technically in the supervised injection site I was a drop-in support for quick counselling referrals and information about other programs But there were so many staffing issues within the site that I barely was able to do the job I’d been hired for and I was essentially forced to do my job as a client support worker while working in the supervised injection site I was still dealing with many of the same people The challenge was that I was doing my client support work while also being required to reverse overdoses Reversing an overdose is not as straightforward as it sounds — just give someone some Naloxone and bring them back you’re just expected to be back on the job right away why don’t you take a few minutes and walk around the block.” Before the new supervised injection site opened it didn’t take long for some of my colleagues to lose control and stumble back into crack or meth Peer workers and other staff with lived experience like me should be getting regular check-ins from management I had two (very positive) performance reviews It became the norm that I and the nurse on my shift couldn’t take regular breaks — forget time to clear our heads after reversing an overdose — because the other two colleagues “working” with us were high as hell South Riverdale’s supervised injection site has four booths At least 80 per cent of our clients were injecting fentanyl bought from street dealers The booths were often filled as soon as we opened one of the challenges we faced was that the public bathrooms on the ground floor were essentially operating as unofficial injection booths for our clients Our clients would simply sneak into one of the bathrooms when we weren’t looking There were times when we had to call the police or EMS because someone had locked themselves into a bathroom and was non-responsive it got to the point where clients were going upstairs to the medical floor and getting themselves buzzed into the washrooms up there We’d get calls from staff upstairs 20 minutes later because clients had overdosed in their washrooms Even staff members were guilty of passing out in the washrooms at work One of my colleagues was unconscious in a bathroom and no one could get to them because the door opened into the washroom and their body was blocking the door the doors to the washrooms were changed so that you had to pull them to open They were also all locked — you had to be buzzed in who became South Riverdale’s CEO in January of 2020 found a staff member from the supervised injection site unconscious in a washroom upstairs on the medical floor He called for us to come up in case it was an overdose he found the same employee prostrate in a stairwell Jason was able to walk him back to us on the ground floor on foot As soon as he released him to the harm reduction staff he returned to the safety of his upper-floor office The booths in the supervised injection site were supposed to be used for about 30 to 40 minutes per client see how you’re going to react and then move on They had the option of getting back in line again but that was the general flow what started happening almost immediately after the supervised injection site opened in South Riverdale is that one or two of the users — who also happened to be drug dealers — would occupy a booth all day They would just sit down and set up shop to deal inside to other clients as though keepSIX was their own personal dispensary It was very difficult to get these dealers out of the booths because everyone wanted them to be there you were going against everyone – not just the clients I had some success keeping drug dealers from coming inside for about my first nine months stuck to a rule — if clients hadn’t already purchased their drugs Have your drugs ready and go to your booth It became the norm that I and the nurse on my shift couldn’t take regular breaks … because the other two colleagues ‘working’ with us were high as hell I was constantly going outside and telling my clients not to shoot up there “Do you realize you can be arrested out here?” The truth was this became less and less of a possibility as time went on Police were not allowed inside the building unless they spoke to a manager It was frowned upon for me to speak to them it was not frowned upon for harm reduction employees to talk to drug dealers Management wanted us to make friends with them invite them in to get their drugs tested to make sure they were safe except for the fact that this was an invitation for them to set up shop for the day inside I did not know until after I left my job at South Riverdale that the 2016 staff implementation guide for South Riverdale’s supervised injection site authored by Toronto’s medical officer of health at the time contained a “Zero-Tolerance Drug Selling Policy” on or near the centre’s premises Not only did no one ever tell me about this policy it was clear that no one above me had any interest in abiding by it A few of us did try speaking to a manager about the drug dealing inside of the supervised injection site The manager felt that upper management didn’t really care about us as employees so it was better to just do your job and let the chips fall where they may a vice president at South Riverdale who works closely with Jason Altenberg I explained my concerns about the drug dealers operating inside and outside of our workplace and she never asked to speak to me about it again (Allegations of mismanagement in this story — staff and managers openly doing drugs or being under the influence of drugs and alcohol while at work awareness of staff members being incapacitated in washrooms and stairwells at the centre clients bringing stolen goods into the centre and dealers buying safer supply drugs or selling drugs in or near the centre and intimidating staff — were put directly to the CEO of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre They responded with a statement from South Riverdale’s communications manager Andrea Laing: “Public discussion of confidential employee and client matters is not permissible and is not consistent with our commitment to provide health services in a way that protects the privacy safety and security of the individuals we employ and serve.” Laing also stated that “any witnessed unprofessional behaviour” by South Riverdale staff should be reported to the centre’s management while “reports of criminal activities should be reported to the Toronto Police.”) A small number of clients — usually between ten and twenty — were handpicked to receive hydromorphone I worked very closely with the safer supply program and referred my clients to it We have to go pick up those needles again before the NIMBYs have a bird Just as I was on the frontline dealing with the drug dealers who had wormed their way into our safe injection site I was also the one often stationed outside watching problems unfold with safer supply as well Clients would pick up their prescriptions for hydromorphone — sometimes for as many as 30 pills — and then beeline into the pharmacy right across the street Then they would wait nearby and a guy in a truck would come every morning and buy all of it I decided to go upstairs to speak to the nurse practitioners in the safer supply program to tell them what was going on I wasn’t necessarily trying to get those clients kicked out of the program Some of them had done a lot of work to get to the point where they could be considered as candidates for safer supply The nurse practitioners seemed to take what I was telling them seriously They said they would pass on what I saw to the manager of safer supply Not long after speaking to the nurse practitioners I had a meeting with the program manager of harm reduction She was speaking to upper management about the fact that I had spoken to the safer supply nurse practitioners about clients selling their hydromorphone to street dealers “I don’t know why she would do that,” I heard Jenn say Jenn and I decided to have our meeting outside and I asked her about her telephone conversation “There was no need for you to go upstairs and have that conversation with them.” “Perhaps you should just tell me what it is you want me to say and then I’ll figure out if it’s something I can live with.” (Jenn Broad did not respond to questions about whether she was aware of clients selling their hydromorphone to street dealers had taken steps to address it or felt it was inappropriate for Tara to have spoken to nurse practitioners about it.) Safer supply made South Riverdale a lot of money — though the staff putting their lives on the line to provide harm reduction services didn’t see much of that — but it also made the health centre unwitting drug traffickers (Meeting minutes for its board of directors state that the South Riverdale Community Health Centre will receive $9.49 million dollars from Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP) for new opioid-specific initiatives After I’d complained to Shannon about the drug dealers operating inside the site saw me most mornings because I was the first one there he just walked right by without saying a word Just tell me what it is you want me to say and then I’ll figure out if it’s something I can live with The confrontation with Jenn Broad was like another ominous cloud hovering over me my days were indeed numbered at South Riverdale The thing no one could have predicted is the event that kick-started my departure a few weeks after I was scolded and shunned for telling those in charge of operating the safer supply program that their prescription hydromorphone was being regularly sold to street dealers as soon as they walked out of the drug store across the street I was in my office one day speaking to a client when suddenly I heard a woman screaming in the lobby It was a homeless client who frequented the centre Why was no one on the floor coming out to tend to this woman I asked my client if he minded me stepping out for a minute to find out what the problem was She pointed to a man by the front door and said he’d followed her I got paid!” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about We always kept plastic bags on site for street involved people It wasn’t the first time she’d asked me for bags I saw a man and an unhappy-looking woman with her arms crossed who were being held up by a staff member at the front door the woman stood up and started walking away That’s when I noticed she was carrying a basket full of packaged meat that had been underneath the chair she’d been sitting in She crouched down and started putting the meat into the plastic bags That’s when I started to question what was happening “I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on,” I said The woman said she needed to use the washroom and a few others from management were now in the lobby some speaking to the pair near the front door The woman started walking away with her vacuum-packed steaks as Jenn approached me But the woman then walked right past the washrooms and disappeared out the rear exit “She’s leaving and not going to the washroom!” Jenn said “If you’re concerned about the meat,” I said Jenn walked over to the leadership group assembled and said “It would appear that we just assisted in a theft because we gave her plastic bags.” worked at a Leslieville butcher shop a few blocks to the west called Rowe Farms They claimed the woman had stolen the meat from their store (The manager of Rowe Farms in Leslieville at the time was one of the people held up at the front door of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre one of her employees had witnessed the woman steal the basket of meat (containing hundreds of dollars’ worth of product) and pursued her out the front door Davis stated that the employee caught up to the woman on the sidewalk across the street and they were engaged in a tug of war over the basket when Davis came outside These snatch-and-grab-style thefts were becoming common Davis had already decided she didn’t want staff pursuing the culprits anymore She told her employee to let the basket go and the woman darted across the street through traffic They followed about ten steps behind her until they got to the health centre Davis advised that the staff person at the front door doing checks for COVID protocols let the woman with the meat in but stopped Davis even though she’d been a patient on the medical floor at the centre for 15 years.) Management decided to investigate the alleged meat-theft incident I was interviewed about it for a second time on May 17 It became clear very early on that the responsibility for the stolen meat leaving the building was mine and mine alone Their questions were telling — why didn’t I chase after the thief when I saw her heading for the back door even though I’m not security or even a manager “did you think about what impact this might have had on the organization?” I told Shannon that I found it perplexing that they were so focused on this incident when stolen goods were brought into South Riverdale every day to be sold to staff and other clients She said not all these incidents made their way up to her office especially since one couple who lived nearby called the police when they saw a client at South Riverdale who had been captured by security cameras stealing items from their property on multiple occasions Officers had come to South Riverdale to investigate (Shannon Wiens did not respond to questions about the meeting with Tara about the theft of meat from Rowe Farms Jenn Broad also did not respond to questions about whether she felt Tara was complicit in the meat theft by providing the alleged thief with plastic bags.) This wasn’t the road Shannon wanted to go down The Rowe Farms people were in the middle of calling the police at one point it would have resulted in a much more serious issue for everyone Eyren Davis stated that she did not stay on the line with police because the South Riverdale employee holding her up at the front door advised there was no point in calling them “The police are not allowed in here,” Davis recalls the staffer saying Shannon Wiens did not respond to questions about whether she was aware that staff had advised Rowe Farms not to call the police and was of the view that police should not be involved) “Rowe Farms trusted us as an organization to deal with this issue in the moment and we didn’t do that,” she said What I thought Shannon needed to understand was that every single store within a kilometre of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre had been robbed by clients of ours bags of clothes – even lobster and salmon from Loblaws It is absolutely humiliating to wear my South Riverdale lanyard in this community because so many people know what our clients are doing And there’s no action — at all — to stop it.” Shannon was not interested in that – only in providing Rowe Farms with a detailed account of how we’d — I’d — failed them (Davis claims that South Riverdale never provided Rowe Farms with any account or explanation for how their meat entered and departed the health centre Jenn Broad and another South Riverdale manager walked to Rowe Farms to return the now-meatless basket the thief had left behind Davis also says that after she left Rowe Farms in May 2022 her successor did speak with a “director” from South Riverdale who came to the store and spoke in “vague terms about increasing security and repairing and fostering relationships within the community.” South Riverdale did not hire an outside security outfit until more than a year later I was called into another one to be informed that I was being terminated with cause for failing to perform due diligence during the meat theft incident even though the meat had been stolen a few blocks away (Jason Altenberg and Shannon Wiens did not respond to questions regarding the reasons for Tara’s firing whether it related to the alleged meat-theft incident or if there were other factors for her dismissal.) Clients would pick up their prescriptions for hydromorphone .. and then beeline into the pharmacy right across the street Then they would wait nearby and a guy in a truck would come .. Due to the recent unionization of the staff at keepSIX this led to a bizarre arbitration meeting in December South Riverdale started asking questions about a little knife they said they’d found in my office was being presented as an alternate cause for my termination I had asked for two people to be present and create an itemized list of everything in my office when it was packed up South Riverdale could not produce the list so the arbitrator directed the health centre representatives to move on I had decided before the arbitration hearing that I did not want my old job back they would just come up with another reason to get rid of me South Riverdale made me a low-ball offer to settle the grievance I found the arbitrator to be cool and unsympathetic to me in the early stages of the hearing But the more I was able to articulate my version of events he started to better understand what I’d been through It helped my cause that video of the meat-theft incident as recorded by the cameras in the health centre lobby What became obvious is that if I’d tried to stop this street-involved meat thief from leaving the building that day I would have been fired for putting hands on her South Riverdale changed course again and claimed that my dismissal was warranted because I had left my client alone in my office when I went to investigate the screams coming from the lobby I knew the complaints I’d levelled at my employer would become documented by the arbitrator and made more known both within the union and to other employees at South Riverdale That’s what I felt was important at that point The arbitrator made a last-ditch attempt to settle He said South Riverdale was offering the maximum allowable payment under the guidelines – a lot more than the initial offer – to bring the matter to an end He said he had a lot of respect for what I was trying to accomplish but that it was in my best interest to take the offer (The precise figure of the settlement cannot be disclosed due to a non-disclosure agreement.) The arbitrator tried to convince me I needed to move on The truth was that I already had plans in motion to move on not just from South Riverdale but from harm reduction altogether I have decided to go back to school to become a paralegal During my last year or so at South Riverdale I worked with a young harm reduction employee in her early twenties named Khalila Mohammed Khalila was all over the news in August when she was arrested for aiding and abetting one of the men police charged in the shooting incident that killed Karolina Huebner-Makurat was charged with manslaughter the same day Khalila was arrested (Khalila Mohammed was charged with being an accessory after the fact and obstructing justice.) I had stayed in touch with Khalila after I left South Riverdale She called me four days before she was arrested on Aug She said she had been placed on leave by South Riverdale and was seeking some advice because South Riverdale had also put me on leave before eventually attempting to terminate my employment Khalila told me her problems stemmed from a stabbing that occurred in front of the health centre She said she’d brought the person who’d been stabbed inside the building to clean them up and She was calling me to see if I thought she needed a lawyer My initial reaction was: if a client of hers was stabbed Helping a client who was injured would normally be the right thing to do During one of Khalila’s first days on the job at South Riverdale I was sitting in a shared workspace when she walked in She then calmly put it back in her purse and walked out In most workspaces this would be an absolute shock to witness She started rambling about being accused of different things It appeared that she was in a state of distress Khalila indicated that she feared her career and all the years of schooling it took to get it started I started to wonder if the stabbing she told me about was a ruse It occurred to me that she might have made up a fictitious stabbing incident when what she was really talking about was the shooting incident on July 7 Had Khalila brought Ibrahim inside after the shooting to tend to his wounds (what she’d described in the stabbing story) only to realize that a woman had been shot to death outside Did she panic because she didn’t know how to get out of it (Inspector Mike Hayles of the Toronto Police Service advises that no calls about a stabbing near the South Riverdale Community Health Centre were received between the day of the shooting and the day of Khalila Mohammed’s arrest in August.) had South Riverdale placed her on leave because of the police investigation that lead to her charges If management was not aware of the police investigation is it possible her being placed on leave was related to her actions on July 7 Based on my years of experience working there it is extremely unlikely Khalila could have brought Ibrahim inside to tend to his injuries without other people seeing her do it — especially after all that jarring gunfire But if there is such a place where the us-versus-them code is ingrained to protect drug dealers over regular community members it is the harm reduction floor of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre Khalila was supposed to come and see me the next day and we were going to talk more (Legal counsel to Khalila Mohammed did not respond to questions about drinking and drug use at the centre or whether Khalila ever consumed alcohol while working They also did not respond to a question about the stabbing incident and if it was possible Khalila was referring to the shooting incident and whether management spoke with her after the alleged incident.) After learning more about the long-running battle the neighbourhood bordering the health centre was waging over the same outdoor drug den I had expressed concerns about I met with a pair of mothers who lived nearby at a Leslieville café an employee at South Riverdale’s COUNTERfit program walked by and saw me I noticed him craning his neck to get a look at who I was with He seemed very suspicious about my presence there I’m pretty sure he recognized one or both women I was meeting with as they had featured prominently in television news coverage after the shooting describing the dangerous environment their children encountered around the centre The five-year-old son of one of the mothers had picked up a baggie of orange fentanyl behind his house that the police had tested The baggie contained enough to kill the boy’s entire kindergarten class I spoke to my former colleague briefly as he passed by the outside of the café’s back patio and asked how he was doing I even gave him my number and said we should catch up some time “You need to be very careful about the politics here,” he warned the Ontario Ministry of Health announced that it was appointing Jill Campbell a former executive at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health as a supervisor at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre’s Consumption and Treatment Services site “will have full decision-making authority on urgent improvements to the operations and safety of the site.” The province also announced a third-party review of South Riverdale’s supervised injection site to be conducted by Unity Health Toronto Derek Finkle is developing a documentary series, The Day Liz Disappeared, based on his book, No Claim to Mercy, to examine the cold-case mystery surrounding the 1990 disappearance of Elizabeth Bain, with a Toronto-based film production company. At the safe consumption site at South Riverdale Community Health Centre the walls are covered in art and murals contributed by clients of the facility Karolina Huebner-Makurat was killed by a stray bullet after three men exchanged gunfire outside the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in July The memorial outside the South Riverdale Health Centre Inside the safe consumption site at South Riverdale Community Health Centre the South Riverdale Community Health Centre hosted the first in a series of open houses to a neighbourhood that still feels the scars of Karolina Huebner-Makurat‘s death and then Ildiko Futo remembers a man telling her to turn back — someone had been hit just down the street A little over six months later, Futo says she still can’t shake the fear she felt that day, or the sense that her neighbourhood had been put in danger by the safe drug-consumption site across from where 44-year-old Karolina Huebner-Makurat was killed by a stray bullet that sunny day on July 7 On Wednesday evening, the South Riverdale Community Health Centre hosted the first in a series of open houses to a neighbourhood that still feels the scars of Huebner-Makurat‘s death with the aim of letting community members see how the facility has changed in response to their outrage For some Leslieville residents who dropped by it’s not enough — “As long as (the safe consumption site) is here But as more than a dozen residents stopped by the open house it was clear community sentiment remains divided with some saying their security concerns about the facility remain as others pointed to changes the clinic has made and the fact that removing it wouldn’t eliminate the harms the toxic drug crisis has brought to Leslieville a neighbourhood resident for 31 years who accompanied Futo to the event He said he’s noticed the centre has hired security guards and put a fence around its adjoining lawn; he’s seen less loitering and drug use in nearby public spaces including the laneways behind his home on Heward Avenue “I feel good about what’s going on here,” he said “It’s really too bad that it took a death to bring it to the forefront.” CEO Jason Altenberg said the centre is “exploring all options” in response to residents’ concerns including moving the safe consumption site to another Leslieville location — although where “We’re deeply committed to listening and continuing to build relationships of greater trust with the community,” he said nevertheless stressing his commitment to helping people struggling with addictions we also are still seeing that these services are also still needed here.” A flurry of community frustration and division has swirled around the centre since Huebner-Makurat‘s death with many attributing the tragedy to the presence of the safe-consumption site which critics say drew people who sell and use substances to the area The shooting stemmed from an argument starting near the parkette outside the facility. Two men have since been arrested, including a man with a long criminal record of gun and drug convictions A staff member at the facility was also charged with accessory after the fact and obstructing justice with police at the time saying she “helped a suspect avoid detection and wasn’t truthful with police.” a local parent who has been involved in public engagement over changes at the health centre said that while she initially supported the creation of a safe consumption site her concerns about used needles and public drug use in the area predate the shooting she’s seen a lack of action in response to issues raised by herself and other residents “It isn’t just a post-July situation,” she said “It’s lack of engagement and broken trust that dates back for years.” introduced regular community consultation meetings and commissioned a third-party review that is still underway a collaborating scientist for the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria and a parent who lives in Leslieville said that those pushing for the safe consumption site to close may not realize that substance use will continue without the facility — it would just result in more dangerous and fatal outcomes for those who rely on the site staff say no one has fatally overdosed at the facility they saw more than 850 visits from more than 50 regular clients; staff reversed 129 overdoses that year The centre is working on a pilot project proposal to add a safe inhalation site — a service for smoke-based drug use — in order to meet demand from the community “People are not going to disappear from neighbourhoods just because we closed services,” Kolla said noting the attention on the site has included photos of the facility showing up on social media making it harder for some to feel like they can access the site’s services confidentially “Supervised consumption sites are the only service that when you have too many people accessing them because we don’t offer enough services a security guard in a bushy parka stood alone outside the health centre The tall fence encircling the parkette beside the health centre gives way to a stone monument These are the names of those who have died in the drug crisis since the memorial was created in 2010 that copper plaques have sprouted up next to the main memorial in order to recognize the growing number of people Altenberg knows balancing the centre’s ongoing commitments and rebuilding its relationship with the wider community is not going to be easy He said he intends to keep the security guard at the centre beyond the initial one-year contract and said he is considering all suggestions from the community Two more open houses are set to take place in the coming days: 10 a.m Community consultation will be an ongoing process through monthly meetings of a newly instated community liaison committee that met for the first time this week “I’m optimistic that we’re moving in the right direction,” she said The head of South Riverdale Community Health Centre announced in a statement that the agency has launched an internal investigation after one of its staff was arrested by Toronto police The head of South Riverdale Community Health Centre announced in a statement that the agency has launched an internal investigation, after one of its staff was arrested by Toronto police. “We are deeply concerned and saddened by the allegations that one of our harm reduction peer support workers has been allegedly involved in an assault,” South Riverdale Community Health Centre CEO Lynne Raskin said in a recent statement. “Upon learning this news, we took immediate steps to ensure the safety and well-being of our clients and community members. We notified our staff and partners of the incident and launched our own internal investigation. The individual will not be working during this investigation,” she wrote in the release. The statement continues: “The alleged acts in this incident do not reflect our values; we are committed to building a community where all people are safe and treated with dignity.” In a Sunday, Dec. 16 news release, the Toronto Police Service said it had made an arrest “in an assault investigation involving the alleged administering of a noxious substance.” Police allege that between Oct. 30 and Dec. 6, a 65-year-old woman met with a man in a residence in the area of Parliament and Oak streets and “was assaulted by him on numerous occasions. When she went to sleep he injected her with an unknown substance.” On Saturday, Dec. 8 police arrested Marty Behim, 49, of Toronto, charging him with two counts of assault; assault with a weapon; administer noxious substance; utter threats; and forcible confinement. Police said the suspect, who also goes by the name of Marty MacKay, Marty Behm, or any combination of those names, works as a harm reduction worker for the South Riverdale Community Health Centre located on Queen Street East. “He deals with vulnerable people, some of whom are dependent on drug treatment,” police stated in the news release. Seven months after a mother was killed in a gun fight between drug dealers outside of a supervised injection site my family lives across the street from a class action lawsuit was filed today in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice naming the South Riverdale Community Health Centre as well as both the federal and provincial ministries of health and the city of Toronto The two named plaintiffs — a nearby resident and business — claim the defendants failed to “adhere to or enforce the conditions imposed by” Toronto City Council in the 2016 implementation guide it adopted for the city’s first three supervised drug consumption sites the surrounding neighbourhood in the heart of the east Toronto community of Leslieville experienced several public and private nuisances property damage and trespass” — all of which caused it to suffer “harm The fatal shooting of Karolina Huebner-Makurat on July 7 just meters from the supervised injection site is included in the criminal activity cited in the lawsuit The resident plaintiff in the Leslieville lawsuit is Jacqueline Court a neighbour of mine who has lived for 12 years with her husband and daughter on Heward Avenue which borders the east side of the health centre Court has not only witnessed violent assaults near the supervised injection site but has also been “physically assaulted by intoxicated people” herself Court alleges that she and her family regularly encounter people “fornicating and defecating” on and near her property and that her family “now feels unsafe walking around their neighbourhood at night and travel by car where they would previously have walked.” The statement of claim includes a harrowing story about an intoxicated woman who threatened to burn down Court’s house emphasized that she would be doing so while Court’s daughter was inside cites many of the same nuisances as Court: intoxicated individuals entering the premises employees unable to enter and exit via the rear lane due to drug use as well as unconscious users blocking the doorway who work about 25 metres away from the supervised injection site have been responsible for cleaning up needles and drug paraphernalia and had to “seek the assistance of police and emergency services to address individuals who are often in distress.” a partner with the Toronto legal firm Ricketts Harris who lives in Leslieville is seeking an injunction requiring South Riverdale to “abate the nuisance,” in addition to any damages determined by the court The plaintiffs argue that the health centre failed to operate its Consumption and Treatment Services site according to rules specified by both the city and the province’s ministry of health Given that the South Riverdale Community Health Centre is located within 150 metres of two schools and six daycare facilities which caused some community members to voice concerns about the placement of the supervised injection site before it opened including a zero-tolerance drug selling policy that when neighbours brought forward their concerns about drug trafficking loitering and violence to the health centre its management “took no steps to address them usually citing a lack of resources or a philosophical aversion to standard institutional responses.” The lawsuit’s claims have not been tested in court the primary funder of the province’s 17 Consumption and Treatment Services sites created new criteria for such establishments which included considering proximity to schools the ministry announced a Compliance and Enforcement Protocol for supervised injection sites which set “minimum expectations for public health programs and services.” any proposed Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) site within 100 to 200 metres of schools parks and daycare facilities “must specify how community concerns will be addressed through community consultation and through ongoing community engagement.” The lawsuit’s statement of claim asserts that at no time before or after the 2021 protocol did South Riverdale’s site suggest any “specific measures to alleviate residents’ concerns ‘that the service should not be located within a few blocks of any school.’” Although the plaintiffs have “insisted that the [Ministry of Health] assess and oversee the CTS in light of its 2019 and 2021 criteria,” the claim states the defendants “failed to take effective steps to prevent the people they invite” to the neighbourhood to access harm reduction services “from unreasonably and substantially interfering with the use and enjoyment of neighbouring properties and the operation of neighbouring businesses.” The Leslieville class-action lawsuit lands four months after Ontario’s Ministry of Health appointed Jill Campbell as a supervisor “to provide executive oversight and operational supervision of the (supervised injection) site.” At the same time the ministry announced that Unity Health Toronto had been contracted to conduct a third-party review of South Riverdale’s Consumption and Treatment Services site according to a letter signed in October by Dr and her assistant deputy minister and chief medical officer “include the operations of the site and the sustainability of (CTS) operations within Community Health Centres.” Its recommendations will determine “next steps for the CTS within the Leslieville community and the ministry’s CTS funding program requirements.” Unity Health announced it would be hosting a series of community consultation sessions with different groups: clients of the health centre South Riverdale’s supervised injection clients Unity Health conducted three consultation sessions for residents and one for local business owners The sessions were facilitated by three members of MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions which is part of Unity Health’s Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St third-party review of a troubled supervised injection site that had been in the headlines for months who observed the community engagement sessions for Unity Health is a MAP scientist who co-authored the supervised consumption feasibility study in 2012 that led to South Riverdale opening one of the first three supervised injection in Toronto in November 2017 defending South Riverdale by declaring that there is no correlation between gun crimes and supervised injection sites while neglecting to mention any other crimes or nuisances When such harm reduction activism was presented to Unity Health as a potential indicator of bias a spokesperson stated that Werb and Dodd were not participating in the review of South Riverdale’s Consumption and Treatment Services site they would not disclose what members of its team were conducting the review Given the decade-plus investment Bayoumi and MAP have in the establishment of supervised injection sites I suspect the community engagement sessions were an uncomfortable exercise for him and his team My session was reflective of each of the four sessions for business owners and residents (I spoke to participants from each session) in that the individuals in all four sessions unanimously agreed on two major points The first is that trust between our neighbourhood and the board and executive management of the health centre is irrevocably broken it was universally felt that the supervised injection site cannot remain where it is in such close proximity to schools and daycares A few participants in each session called for the resignations of the centre’s entire board and senior executives A mother who participated in my session told a distressing story she was walking with her two young children across the street from the supervised injection site when she encountered a man walking toward her carrying needles and other drug supplies The woman was trying to avoid eye contact but was wearing sunglasses and the man became angry with her for supposedly looking at him these types of encounters are not uncommon in the area drug dealers were not just a problem outside the centre they also wormed their way inside the site and were selling to clients from the supervised injection booths Given that the centre was unable to control drug dealers and had promoted a non-enforcement boundary to keep police at bay so as not to intimidate their clients from seeking services I asked if it made sense for this supervised injection site to exist mere steps from where more than a thousand children are attending schools and daycares The province would not give South Riverdale a license for a cannabis dispensary due to its proximity to schools but the ministry of health was content to allow fentanyl dealers our neighbourhood had been promised that supervised injection sites lowered both overdoses and crime This was supposedly confirmed by research done decades ago in Vancouver and elsewhere I informed Bayoumi that this did not turn out to be the case in South Riverdale Toronto police crime data reveals annual confirmed overdoses have tripled reports of assault recently increased by 60 per cent and 911 calls were on a sharp incline welcoming the federal Minister of Mental Health & Addictions Michael’s Hospital to announce $21 million in federal funding for toxic drug and overdose projects What’s interesting is that Unity Health is on the receiving end of millions of dollars to conduct harm reduction research yet its hospitals have chosen not to have Consumption and Treatment Services sites I provided a 2020 study on the “impacts of the Lethbridge supervised consumption site on the local neighbourhood” by Dr then at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta This is one of the only studies I’ve come across in this country that focuses on those who live around such sites instead of those who use them An intriguing aspect of the study is that it began documenting behaviour around the site before it opened to establish base line data It also measured impacts based on distance from the supervised injection site in nine “delineated zones,” a 100-metre radius from the site being the smallest The study’s findings are summarized as follows: but they cannot accept a real or perceived threat to their personal This perceived threat (of negative impacts) is more acutely experienced the closer one is situated to the area in question This tendency reflects the proximity hypothesis: those nearest a controversial development are most likely to reject it since they bear a disproportionate burden of any negative consequences from it and thus largely removed from most or all negative impacts are more likely to be supportive of it in theory while the rest of the city benefits from localizing a social issue into a single neighbourhood the area around the site disproportionately bears the burden of improvements seen elsewhere in the city.” to be honest in their forthcoming report for the ministry about Unity Health’s bias and pro-supervised injection activism Two weeks after the final Unity Health community consultation session I attended an open house event at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre There were three open houses in total and considerable effort was made to attract media attention so the centre could get the word out on efforts it had made to improve safety since the shooting that it had fenced off a parkette area on the west side of its building — land owned by the neighbouring Presbyterian church — that had for years been an outdoor drug den And that it had hired a security company to monitor the immediate area around its building and replaced some of its old security cameras We had also begged them for just as long to hire security We were told there was no budget for security South Riverdale finally found the money to hire security within a few hours of Karolina Huebner-Makurat being shot If South Riverdale had done either prior to that fateful day there is a decent chance her two children would still have their mother The open houses were part of a damage control campaign that has been going on for more than seven months One of these — the CBC — declared in its report on the open houses that there was “no confirmed link” between the health centre and the shooting This contention that there is no confirmed link between the health centre and the shooting hovered during a press conference at Toronto police headquarters on Feb Even though the lead investigator in the Huebner-Makurat shooting brushed off a reporter’s question about the supervised injection site he said that the gun fight was initiated when two alleged drug dealers (one of the men fled to Somalia after the shooting) allegedly tried to rob a third drug dealer of his drugs and possibly some cash Marsman did not dispute that drug dealing was rampant around the supervised injection site when pressed on the issue “we believe were drug dealers and they were in the area.” Whatever reasons Marsman has for avoiding the topic of the supervised injection site it doesn’t eliminate the fact that Mohammed was a supervised injection worker who allegedly helped one of the suspects avoid detection after the shooting Nor does it explain the fact that within 24 hours of Tara Riley’s story being published in the Post Marsman’s colleagues at the homicide squad asked her to come in to answer some questions related to the shooting and suspects If there was no link between the supervised injection site and the shooting Riley hadn’t worked at the site for more than a year when the shooting occurred it was difficult for me and my neighbours to see South Riverdale’s open houses as an act of genuine reconciliation The centre’s leaders have not once publicly conceded that it completely ignored the many public safety concerns it received from residents and business owners in our neighbourhood going back to at least 2019 it has never once admitted that it allowed an outdoor drug market to cultivate on its perimeter for years in violation of the guidelines it agreed to with the city a couple of events that occurred in the early morning hours of Jan 12 were reverberating through the neighbourhood The first was a break-in at a running and fitness store across the street from the South Riverdale Community Health Centre This was the fourth break-in this business has experienced over the past year The owners say they have suffered losses and damages north of $60,000 Its owners participated in the Unity Health community session for businesses and told the review team that someone reported to be a client of the supervised injection site was charged and convicted for two of those thefts Culture Athletics was previously located just a few blocks east Culture Athletics experienced nothing more than a couple of snatch-and-grab thefts totaling less than $100 The second incident was a cluster of harm reduction supplies and needles found on and around the perimeter of a local daycare a couple of blocks from Culture Athletics The staff who answered its hotline refused to clean it up The city will only pick up the used syringes it distributes through sites such as South Riverdale Community Health Centre if it is on public property They had to call back several times and claim to have spoken to four different people before someone said they would attend to clean up the biohazardous waste as parents were dropping off their toddlers It appears South Riverdale might be able to put the new security cameras it was boasting about to the media during the open houses to use a local drug user walked into the store and said he knew who was responsible for the theft Fick said this volunteer informant told him that the thief had been bragging about his exploits at the centre He even told Fick the loose-lipped bandit’s name and said he worked at the health centre (something police have yet to verify with Fick) He said the self-confessed robber had just gotten off the streetcar Fick looked out his storefront window across the road and couldn’t believe what he saw Not only was it the man his security video captured breaking into his store right down to the black Nike sweatpants with polka dots Fick said the same individual had come into the store six months earlier to say he knew who was responsible for some of the store’s previous break ins— yet another client at South Riverdale’s supervised injection site He then paid cash for some Nike running gloves — gloves he would be caught wearing on the store’s security cameras months later during the January theft The Nike-clad looter was captured deftly climbing over a tall security gate near the front of the store and then going straight to where he’d seen his cash deposited during the summer glove purchase headed straight to the Nike section and grabbed an armful of sweatsuits climbed over the top and ran out the front door it had taken him eight attempts to get a large concrete block through the glass The police investigating the robbery are in the process of obtaining a warrant to obtain footage of the Nike burglar later entering the health centre It is South Riverdale’s policy to require a judicial warrant before turning over any security footage to police a prominent member of Leslieville’s pro-harm reduction group — formed in the aftermath of the shooting in anticipation of the forthcoming blowback — publicly stated that complaints about discarded needles littering our neighbourhood are “a lie.” Even though the number of discarded needles at schools daycares and parks decreases exponentially in the colder winter months Skudlarska and other activists have been trying to create a narrative of late along the lines of: “Look at how much things have improved Look how hard the health centre is trying!” there are still drug dealers operating around South Riverdale daily Needles in the woodchips at the playground at Morse Street Junior Public School were a consistent problem throughout the summer and well into the fall A similar school near a supervised injection site in the west end of Toronto is locked and gated during non-school hours Many Morse Street parents are concerned their children could also end up losing a crucial recently renovated play space due to safety and liability concerns The morning the needles were discovered at the daycare one of Skudlarska’s fellow pro-harm reduction activists wrote a post in a large Leslieville Facebook group about what to do if you find needles in the neighbourhood — call the city (or the health centre) or pick them up yourself with silicone-tipped tongs It did not go unnoticed that Ramsey made no mention about the fact that the needles in question were found at a daycare facility These incidents usually involve the children having to undergo blood transfusions to protect from Hepatitis B and lengthy and traumatic HIV prophylaxis treatment It is far from a theoretical or faux concern citing concerns about drug use and violence in the area The neighbourhood no longer has a daycare facility neighbourhood theft and inept management during her six years of working in harm reduction at South Riverdale had been published just a few days earlier Altenberg didn’t deny anything in Riley’s story he insisted his community health centre didn’t “permit stolen goods to be purchased and sold on the property.” Nor did they permit drug dealers to set up shop inside the centre or allow staff to use drugs while at work I pointed out to Campbell that saying something isn’t permitted is not the same as saying it didn’t happen I suggested that Campbell might be interested in speaking to Riley about her experiences while working at South Riverdale I figured it could only add insight to the report Campbell will be submitting to the ministry when her contract to oversee and investigate the Consumption and Treatment Services site ends in April Riley would become aware of another response from South Riverdale to her story — this time one written by a lawyer representing the health centre Riley was copied on an email written by an employment lawyer named Angela Rae a week after her story appeared in the National Post The email referred to an arbitration that took place on Dec Riley had been terminated with cause in May 2022 after a bizarre incident in which a health centre client had brought a basket of meat she’d allegedly stolen from a nearby butcher into the lobby South Riverdale claimed that Riley had “actively participated” in allowing the client to leave the building with the meat through a rear door Riley said that many of the reasons South Riverdale cited as cause for termination were untrue (which was corroborated by the manager of the butcher shop) and did not stand up to scrutiny at the arbitration the union that represented Riley at the arbitration that Riley had “violated the terms of the settlement agreement” by telling her story in the National Post as well as by speaking to a local radio program Rae called it “an egregious breach” that deserved “significant South Riverdale sought the following remedies: repayment of the monies paid to Riley as per the settlement a release of South Riverdale from its settlement obligations and a cease-and-desist order from further alleged violations I spoke to Riley shortly after she became aware of Rae’s email in mid-December She was alarmed that South Riverdale was pursuing her in this manner especially given that Riley felt she had a public-interest duty to report after the shooting and the subsequent arrest of a former harm reduction colleague at South Riverdale for allegedly being an accessory after Huebner-Makurat’s murder Riley also said she was not familiar with the specifics of her arbitration agreement asking if she was aware that South Riverdale was pursuing Riley via legal counsel I gave Campbell a hard copy of Rae’s email Even though Riley was an employee at South Riverdale before Campbell’s arrival I told her I found it troubling that the centre’s management decided to pursue Riley in this way after her story about the supervised injection site Campbell was now in charge of went public — without telling Campbell For a health centre that claimed to be dedicated to restoring my neighbourhood’s trust vindictively pursuing a former employee who came forward out of concern for the safety of our children was only going to further decimate it If South Riverdale pursued Riley in this manner I told Campbell that our neighbourhood would organize a very public GoFundMe campaign to cover any monies she might be ordered to repay Campbell said she needed to think about whether she wanted to intervene Campbell informed me that she had spoken to Altenberg and that he then instructed Angela Rae to drop the demand that Riley repay the settlement money The centre would only pursue a cease-and-desist order as a result of the alleged violation of the settlement The parties are meeting with the mediator this week Campbell has said the same to me and others citing certain streets that are more commercial and further away from schools and daycares Altenberg played coy with the press at the open houses when it came to where it might go but Campbell was a little more forthcoming was finding a landlord willing to take on a supervised injection site as a tenant my neighbourhood generally did not oppose having such a site in our community health centre because back then we naively believed all the drug activity would take place inside and that harm reduction activists and police would work in harmony to keep drug dealers from swarming to one central location which grants exemptions to its drug laws so that supervised injection sites such as South Riverdale’s can operate South Riverdale’s current exemption expires in November community support has been determined by the applicant alone Now neighbourhoods such as ours want to be heard as well the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions has deferred meeting with us until after the reviews of South Riverdale’s Consumption and Treatment Services site are completed moving this supervised injection site may not be an option This is a direct result of the failure of what was billed to us as an experimental pilot project that has somehow become entrenched public health policy Leaving South Riverdale’s supervised injection site where it is is also becoming increasingly fraught with each passing week A community health centre cannot feasibly remain at such polarized odds with many of the neighbours it claims to serve Derek Finkle is an award-winning writer and editor who is currently producing a documentary series which examines the cold-case mystery surrounding the 1990 disappearance of Elizabeth Bain \"our\") of the service provided by this web site (\"Service\") are not responsible for any user-generated content and accounts Content submitted express the views of their author only This Service is only available to users who are at least {age} years old you represent that you are this age or older or otherwise make available to the Service (\"Content\") may be reviewed by staff members All Content you submit or upload may be sent to third-party 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Powered by data from UTPro encompassing a pair of Toronto’s east end communities Zone E01 is bound roughly by the Don Valley Parkway to the West The urban area enjoys an extensive network of TTC services and while the majority of it is zoned for Neighbourhood uses a number of key mixed-use corridors like Queen Street East and Danforth Avenue represent a wealth of possibility for development With increasingly dense redevelopment quickly transforming areas close to Downtown Our MLS Zone Report identified a total of 78 Projects in E01 The remaining 49 projects have been classified as pre-construction demonstrating the depth of the pipeline in this zone and the extent of the changes it can expect to see in the coming years Taking a look at the current state of development in E01, one of the most recently completed projects in the zone is Lofthouse on Logan The 6-storey mostly-residential building is yet another example of the type of mid-rise development that has been proliferating in the east end for the last decade the demand for greater density on such sites is now here but projects of this smaller scale have been successful so far due to an easier time getting going approval.  Looking northeast at 6-storey Lofthouse on Logan development Under construction currently is a project that is on the cusp of delivering a true mixed-use development to the area. Dubbed Riverside Square the multi-phase project comprises extensive retail With the highly connected location of the site the completed phases of the project are already bringing a boost in local foot traffic to the wider community while making their own contributions to the streetscape The large mixed-use development Riverside Square is in the late stages of construction Finally, in the pre-construction stage, 685 Lake Shore East is a sign of things to come for the southern portion of E01 The proposal could become the first new residential development to populate the Port Lands with a pair of 35-storey towers and a unit count of 760 On the very northern edge of the Port Lands this scale is far less likely to be approved in most cases further to the north amongst the established low-rise neighbourhoods of the area other than for around stations on the coming Ontario Line 3 Proposed design for 2-tower 685 Lake Shore East development Zooming out to look at the set of projects as a whole, our MLS Zone Report shows us that E01’s propensity for mid-rise development along its Avenues is one of the defining characteristics of the zone Average building height and other heights stats for Zone E01 Based on our Report we can see that E01 has all the right characteristics for continued development with a robust network of existing transit infrastructure and more coming the area has become a focal point for intensification; the big question here will be how the Port Lands develops in the coming years along with the East Harbour development that will bridge the existing neighbourhoods with greater density in the huge swath of land soon to become buildable to the south.  As UrbanToronto continues to refine its role in the GTA development industry, our data services have evolved to become one of our defining elements and we want to share those capabilities with our community. The UrbanToronto Pro Instant Reports is just one of the ways our data can be applied to provide quick and convenient insights on the development trends of any area in the GTA The South Riverdale Community Health Centre includes a safe consumption service that has become the focus of community anger since the shooting death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat The evidence presented at the bail hearing on Tuesday is subject to a court-ordered publication ban The health centre staffer charged with accessory after the fact and obstructing justice in a deadly Leslieville shooting has been released on a $200,000 bail Justice of the Peace Moira Callahan made the decision after a daylong bail hearing in North York on Tuesday There is little the Star can say about that hearing because all of the evidence presented by the Crown prosecutor and the lawyer for 23-year-old Khalila Mohammed is subject to a court-ordered publication ban — one that is standard for bail hearings That means any details about the alleged offences and Mohammed’s personal circumstances cannot be published until they are discussed in open court or after the case has concluded Callahan ordered the Pickering resident to live under house arrest with her parents who will be her sureties and who each pledged $100,000 to secure her release She must be under their constant supervision unless meeting with her lawyer or during any counselling She is not allowed to have access to a phone or the internet without her parents supervising her Mohammed had been in custody since her arrest Aug. 14 The charges against her stem from a shooting on Queen Street East near Carlaw Avenue on July 7 that saw a stray bullet hit and kill 44-year-old Karolina Huebner-Makurat a mother of two who lived in the community Police say that three men were involved in an altercation near the intersection when a gun went off and the suspects fled. Damian Hudson, 32, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder A police spokesperson previously said of Mohammed’s alleged involvement that she “helped a suspect avoid detection and wasn’t truthful with police.” The South Riverdale Community Health Centre — which is just east of the intersection where the shooting occurred and has been the centre of community concerns about drug use and violence — earlier said Mohammed was placed on leave on Aug An earlier statement from the centre’s CEO Jason Altenberg and interim board chair Emily Hill said they were “distressed” to learn about the charges against the staff member and that they were continuing to fully co-operate with police is a federally-approved and provincially-funded facility that allows drug users to bring in illegal substances to inject or consume in the presence of trained health professionals who monitor for signs of overdose or infection It is one of nine similar sites operating across the city The province’s health ministry previously announced they were launching a “critical incident review” of supervised consumption sites The status of that review has not be publicized The South Riverdale Community Health Centre will be opening a new satellite location on Danforth Avenue the South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC) will be bringing some of its programs and services to The Danforth Workers are currently in the process of renovating a former Hakim Optical store at 1245 Danforth Ave. the SRCHC (which is headquartered at 955 Queen St E at Carlaw Avenue) had been using space at Alternatives – The East York Mental Health Counselling Services the 39-year-old organization has been casually looking to lease or rent commercial space in the city’s east end to provide even more programming and services The opportunity recently presented itself with Hakim Optical relocating westward to the Danforth-Pape area “We’re tight for space for programming at our Queen Street location … We can’t shoehorn people in here anymore,” said Lynne Raskin “We just needed more space because there’s a demand for more programming.” Raskin said the new location is ideal because it’s just steps from the subway and much closer to where many of the people they serve live “A lot of the work we’re doing is moving north,” she said of the SRCHC which serves east-end residents living in an area bounded by O’Connor Drive to the north the Don Valley Parkway to the west and Coxwell Avenue to the east It’s very exciting and it’s a good news story for us.” With a limited number of smaller meeting rooms and one main meeting space at its Leslieville facility the time had come to have more space of their own for a variety of uses “This is actually a space that will belong to us,” she said of the new 1,600-square-foot accessible space with a community kitchen No additional funding has been obtained to help pay for the new location noting the SRCHC factored the cost of this project into its budget Applications have since been submitted for additional funding to help cover costs The SRCHC’s new satellite location should begin offering programming by late September Multiple residents and business owners who joined the Safer Communities Committee in Leslieville following the fatal shooting of a mother of two have resigned over “the disturbing lack of interest in immediate and meaningful change toward community safety.” they say the committee was formed in partnership with the South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC) after Karolina Huebner-Makurat was shot and killed on July 7 She was hit by a stray bullet after a group of three men were in an altercation nearby Three people have since been arrested in the shooting, including one person who was employed as a health worker at the health centre at the time of the shooting. Those who joined said the Centre’s leadership showed a “disdain” for resident concerns. They blame the Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) program hosted by the Centre for the safety issues that have cropped up in the neighbourhood. “There is continued drug dealing, visible drug use, used needles left in playgrounds, theft, and violent behaviour towards area kids, residents and businesses. The lack of interest and action has left locals with no choice,” read the release. A statement from SRCHC Interim Board Chair and member of the Safer Community Committee, Emily Hill, said they value the contribution of these members, but are “disappointed that some individuals have chosen to step away from the SCC before the recommendations are finalized.” “We will continue to work with all community members who want to help us address community safety issues,” continued the statement. Residents who resigned from the committee have now created their own grassroots group called Leslieville Neighbours for Community Safety. They are calling on Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones to immediately relocate the site away from the schools and daycares in the area. Derek Finkle, one of the residents who resigned from the committee, said the SCS wasn’t focused on issues they could control or accountability. “I think the committee was kind of a long-term stunt in a way because it was set up to examine safety issues in the community. But the biggest safety issue it wasn’t willing to look at was itself,” said Finkle. They are also demanding the SRCHC undergoes a reapplication of any future provincial funding or federal exemptions and a full examination of the “dangerous mismanagement of the site.” “The fact that these sites supposedly saves lives, yes, I’m sure they do. But they also are causing huge amount of damage … physical damage, emotional damage, financial damage to the businesses, and it all has to be weighed.” Finkle said the church nearby has fenced off one of the main areas of concerns, but it’s simply moved across the street into the school yard. “It’s a lot harder for people to congregate in that space now, but what hasn’t really changed is that we still are dealing with a fair amount of drug dealing,” said Finkle. “I think what a lot of us are struggling with is why the health and wellbeing of a rare, fairly small group of users that receive these needles overrides the health and wellbeing of hundreds, a much larger group, of children that use that newly refurbished space a lot.” Needles can be seen in a play area close to the South River Community Health Centre which runs a Consumption and Treatment Services site. CITYNEWS/Faiza Amin Another resident in the new group, Ashley Kea, said her main concern is that things are getting worse. “It’s just going to keep growing. It’s going to continue to escalate. We’re going to continue to see more people using within the streets. We’re going to find more needles, more drugs on the street. And we’re going to see people dying or kids are going to see the people overdosing in the streets as well,” said Kea. Kea said she wants to see more needle boxes available. “I personally would like to see needle boxes throughout the city. They have to be easier. I personally don’t have a problem picking up the needles if I have somewhere to put them. But right now, we’re on our own as residents,” she said. Christiane Tetreault with Leslieville BIA said they have asked for aid and support from the health centre repeatedly since it first opened. “It’s been very traumatic for the staff, unsure of how to manage those types of situations. The staff is in the small businesses and retail storefronts. We are not equipped or trained to handle anyone with issues coming from the center.” She added lots of businesses have dealt with break-ins repeatedly. “One of our members was held at gunpoint, about four weeks ago, and constantly we have someone going into stores stealing tip jars on a regular basis,” explained Tetreault. A spokesperson for the Minister of Health tells CityNews that based on input received from the community, “There is clear concern that trust has been damaged with South Riverdale Community Health Centre’s CTS site.” “CTS sites are expected to build trust in the communities where they are located through consultation and ongoing engagement, and we understand the importance of community feedback in this matter,” read a statement from a spokesperson of the Minister. The statement said that following the incident, the ministry launched a review of all sites beginning with Riverdale, including consulting with Public Health, reviewing complaints and developing a new critical incident reporting process. “As the ministry continues the review, we will explore all appropriate options to ensure safe communities for all.” The Associate Minister of Health also announced Thursday the province will not approve new supervised consumption and treatment sites while a review of all sites is underway. Finkle tells CityNews a group of lawyers from the neighbourhood plan to file a class action lawsuit against the SRCHC and those who are responsible for the oversight of the center, but further details have yet to be released at this time. “I think what we really need is for our elected officials, to listen to what the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2011, which is harm reduction can’t come at the expense of public safety,” said Finkle. It has been known for some weeks now that two supervised injection sites in northern Ontario were scheduled to close over the Easter long weekend which opened in Timmins and Sudbury in 2022 had been funded by their respective municipalities on a temporary basis as it was assumed the province would start picking up the tab once their applications had been rubber-stamped the province slow-rolled those applications (and others) it is difficult to know whether Timmins and Sudbury — or any other applicants for such sites — would have ultimately been approved by Ontario’s Doug Ford Conservatives absent a seismic event in the drug policy world last summer: the shooting death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat The 44-year-old wife and mother of two young children was killed by a bullet fired during an altercation between a few of the drug dealers who flocked to the supervised injection site at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Toronto’s east end after it opened in late 2017 Just as devastating to those advocating for harm-reduction policies an employee at South Riverdale’s site was charged with being an accessory after the fact to one of the alleged shooters pending the outcome of two reviews of the South Riverdale site in addition to a general review of the 17 sites across the province While one of the South Riverdale reviews has reportedly been completed being written by the supervisor appointed to the site by the province in October will not be finished until later this month claimed one of harm reduction’s loudest voices “are at the feet of” Minister Tibollo and his entire government a platoon of harm-reduction activists and proponents of decriminalizing powerful opioids such as fentanyl which is killing thousands of people a year in this country tried to publicly guilt a group of elected officials into funding more supervised injection sites as these free-drugs-for-all missionaries are shouting from the safety of their suburban homes that ministers Jones and Tibollo are heartless human beings who just want more people to die despite not voting for the ministers’ party At the next drug policy coalition symposium when coalition members conduct a post-mortem on why their campaign to save the Timmins and Sudbury sites failed the first question that needs to be asked is this: Is our tried-and-true “blood on your hands” shaming strategy working anymore I have unique insight into this given that I live across the street from the South Riverdale supervised injection site and, like most of my neighbours, did not oppose such a facility from opening in our community health centre. Contrary to what activists regularly insist, however, we did not need alleged “misinformation” from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, an opponent of safer supply, to realize we’d been sold a false bill of goods. It is offensive in the extreme when activists such as Michael Parkinson slough off drug dealers who moved into the area because of its supervised injection site, eventually killing a local mother, as an “isolated incident.” Sure, drug dealers allegedly shooting an innocent passerby might be a relatively isolated incident. But what was not an isolated incident was the fact that many of my neighbours complained about those drug dealers for years, just as they repeatedly voiced concerns about violence, theft and the open-air drug market the site permitted to flourish on its perimeter, contrary to the provincial guidelines it agreed to. And guess what? Those safety concerns were all ignored — until a woman was killed. To this day, South Riverdale has not acknowledged that it violated those guidelines by creating a safe area for this drug market outside its doors, within 150 metres of two elementary schools and six daycare facilities. Nor has it publicly admitted that it ignored the many expressions of concern around safety, especially the safety of children, it received over several years. If drug policy activists want to be taken seriously by the mainstream public (which, according to the latest polls, supports Poilievre’s Conservatives in a landslide) and the politicians they elect, maybe reconsider calling everyone who has misgivings about your experimental drug initiatives cold-blooded murderers. Stop claiming the moral high ground, saying you have evidence on your side — you don’t. Minister Tibollo is as aware as the rest of us that harm reduction on its own is not going to get us any closer to ending this ever-growing crisis. Supervised injection sites are supposed to be a gateway to more recovery-oriented services, as well as those for mental health illnesses. That gateway, as it exists in Ontario, is woefully insufficient. The minister shouldn’t be condemned as a murderer for investigating a new path forward. If activists have so much confidence in their beliefs, then perhaps it’s time to start acknowledging their ideology did not unfold as conceived. How can harm reduction be improved? Let’s start there. You might be surprised how many doors will open for you. It can’t be less effective than labelling those who hold different views as serial killers. Derek Finkle is an award-winning writer and editor who is currently producing a documentary series, The Day Liz Disappeared, which examines the cold-case mystery surrounding the 1990 disappearance of Elizabeth Bain. on behalf of the Leslieville Harm Reduction Coalition A group of our neighbours is advocating in the media for the closure of the supervised drug consumption site (SCS) in our east Toronto neighbourhood Their opposition to the site at times relies on myths about people who use drugs rejects scientific evidence about the effectiveness of harm reduction services While parents of young children may not call it harm reduction We insist our youngsters wear bike helmets and we watch endless YouTube clips on correct car seat installation We might limit screen time or set parent controls on the WiFi We tell them to sit down when they eat so they don’t choke These actions don’t eliminate the risk of harm but they reduce the likelihood of a bad outcome Parents of older children may recognize other actions more explicitly as harm reduction We promise our teenagers that we’ll pick them up from parties and overlook underage drinking in favour of getting them home safely We keep condoms under the bathroom sink with the extra Kleenex and toothpaste We might explain how naloxone can reverse an overdose and where to access it Despite our regular reliance on harm reduction as parents supervised drug consumption sites — a key harm reduction intervention — are sometimes misleadingly framed as dangerous for children This narrative obscures the fact that communities with no SCSs also experience needles in parks and drug use — but without the benefit of having a place where people who use drugs can go to receive health care What if relocating the SCS or reducing its services puts our kids in more danger (or does not reduce the danger children face while dramatically increasing the danger to people who use drugs) If people lose access to the supervised consumption site and places to safely dispose of drug-use equipment this could result in more public drug use and more litter in parks Without access to life-saving harm reduction services overdose deaths could escalate in our neighbourhood Our local SCS is located within a health centre that provides access to a wide range of supports and referrals so reducing the services could impede people from accessing treatment and frontline workers who understand their needs we know that some of our children and their friends will try drugs as they enter their teens and adulthood We worry about their fate if accurate information harm reduction supplies and less toxic drugs are not available People do not start using drugs because of the availability of harm reduction services Harm reduction services were put in Leslieville because of existing drug use in the area It may now be more visible to some residents because of gentrification — dive bars and cheap eating establishments have disappeared and many affordable housing options have given way to high-value real estate the need for mental health and social supports has increased across the board while social and health services have been stretched beyond recognition trying to address increasing levels of need while receiving less funding The local SCS has been part of our neighbourhood for over six years busy harm reduction program that includes needle distribution The recent rhetoric demonizing this vital health-care service stands in opposition to extensive evidence that SCSs save lives and can contribute to reducing public drug use and overdose deaths in surrounding neighbourhoods Some of our neighbours say that their perspectives — in particular their call to move the SCS out of the centre of Leslieville — have been ignored and that they as community members need to be heard Community perspectives must always be considered when making decisions about the provision of health-care services Our community includes the people who use the SCS although their perspectives are often downplayed as well as diverse residents who want to ensure comprehensive health care and supports are available for all of our community members who need them including those traditionally marginalized from mainstream services expansive and inclusive services in our community as our children grow — including more availability of harm reduction programming In the midst of the toxic drug crisis that is killing 22 people in Canada every day and has killed over 40,000 people since 2016 They began appearing on the ground around the South Riverdale Community Health Centre with increasing regularity after a new safe injection site opened there in late 2017 South Riverdale is an independent centre built in 1998 in Leslieville It also happens to be across the street from the house where I have lived with my wife and son for 14 years Used needles also started popping up in the rear lanes on both sides of Heward Avenue These lanes are playgrounds for the many children who live on these streets relatively traffic-free spaces where they can ride their bikes play catch and shoot at basketball and hockey nets Concerned parents began picking up these needles sometimes taking them to the health centre on days when it was open I did this many times between 2018 and 2020 The typical response I received from the harm-reduction staff was what you might expect from people whose profession involves working with needles and illicit drugs each workday I think it’s fair to say they regarded these neighbourhood concerns about needles as a minor nuisance (which perhaps it was compared to what they were dealing with) and they would usually offer to try to do more regular sweeps of the lanes to collect them But it was typically a response made in a weary beleaguered way that indicated sweeps were not really a priority there was a distinctive shift outside the centre been transformed from a place of semi-discreet open use to something that bore a much closer resemblance to the open-air drug emporium that would grow over the next four years Drug dealers would arrive by car across from my house most mornings and the buyers would not-so-discreetly arrive to make purchases Not long after the drug dealers distribute their goods drug-addled woman stumbled down our street in the middle of the day screaming at people on their front porches and cited the address of that house out loud “I got something for you!” She then proceeded to tell the occupants of that house that she would be returning to burn it down She emphasized that she would be doing so while the children who lived in the house were in it a boy in another home not far away walked out his front door to discover a man passed out on his front porch As he was slowly moved towards the sidewalk the man hurled racist slurs at the boy’s father as the police watched whose wares often fuel these terrifying encounters there was a dealer I had seen around the South Riverdale Community Health Centre who bears a strong resemblance to one of three suspects Toronto homicide investigators released photos of shortly after the murder of innocent bystander Karolina Huebner-Makurat This trio allegedly drew handguns and opened fire on each other after a disagreement beside the centre on the afternoon of Friday had gone out to buy herself a smoothie near the centre and was caught in the cold-blooded crossfire I got a call from a reporter at the Toronto Star The reporter heard I was part of a group of residents that had been expressing safety concerns about the safe injection site for some time and he wanted to know if I had any comment on the shooting death that had quickly transfixed my neighbourhood — and the city I told the Star that the death of Huebner-Makurat was “We’ve been warning [the health centre] that at some point a child is going to get injured,” I was quoted saying different viewpoints about what caused the events of July 7 and what should be done about it have emerged But what most people don’t know is how and why an open-air drug market formed on and around the perimeter of the health centre’s property — only after the safe injection site opened The first arrest in the case was made within a week of July 7 Thirty-two-year-old Damian Hudson was charged with second-degree murder The third male suspect remains outstanding A fourth person involved in the case was not what people were expecting: 23-year-old Khalila Zara Mohammed 14 for being an accessory after the fact to an indictable offence (allegedly assisting Ibrahim in his escape from the scene as well as in the subsequent weeks when he was in hiding) and obstructing justice (not being truthful with police) Mohammed was quickly confirmed to be employed as a harm-reduction staffer at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre the behaviour exhibited by some harm-reduction staff outside the building has been concerning for a long time Several residents claimed to have seen harm-reduction staff using outside of the building They have seen harm-reduction staff attempting to prevent plainclothes police officers from making drug-dealing arrests around the same perimeter One neighbour said he heard a harm-reduction worker tell a client complaining about his lack of funds to just go and rob some houses on my street because “they’re all rich.” The events leading up to July 7 and what followed have been fairly polarizing in Leslieville Some assumed the community outrage that followed the shooting was a knee-jerk response to the tragedy and that residents who expressed various safety concerns about the perimeter of the health centre were insensitive NIMBY-ists attempting to capitalize on a heartbreaking tragedy to clear the neighbourhood of its underprivileged and addicted or deny them important health services but all communities grappling with how to confront opioid use deserve to have a deeper understanding of what happened at this safe injection site in South Riverdale there was a community consultation process There has been some very fair criticism levelled at how the community consultation process unfolded leading up to 2017 I have also read comments and heard people say that drugs have always been a fact of life downtown and that the level of drug activity outside of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre on July 7 was no different than it was a decade ago Drugs have always been part of downtown living buying and open use on the level we have seen over the past four years did not exist on the perimeter of the centre prior to 2017 the retail store where people laid flowers and tributes as part of a community memorial to Huebner-Makurat soon after her passing for a fitness business between 2015 and 2019 I walked through the health centre property at least four times a day in those years I recall seeing no visible signs of drug use before 2018 than any other residential street in Leslieville prior to the opening of the safe injection site there and the CEO of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre he conceded that the concentration of drug activity in the parkette between his building and the neighbouring church was far denser and more persistent than what one would find four or five blocks in any direction He agreed it was not part of what one typically equates with the casual drug exposure that comes with downtown living During the city-wide community consultation process in 2016 for the three safe injection sites that opened in Toronto in 2017 after receiving federal approval – the other two being Queen West – Central Toronto Community Health Centre and The Works in the Toronto Public Health building on Victoria Street – supervised-injection proponents cited data from existing safe injection sites elsewhere that showed the incidence of discarded needles theft and drug-related violence typically went down after the establishment of such facilities Some residents’ groups opposed to safe injection sites leveled critiques of that data In one lengthy report submitted in July 2016 to the mayor city council and Toronto Board of Health by the Queen West Residents for Safe & Caring Communities it noted that what Toronto was considering appeared to be “modelled on” Insite Vancouver’s supervised injection site (SIS) and that “the SIS proposal for Toronto was a ‘done deal’ before local residents were notified or consulted.” While “drug consumption rooms” had existed in Europe for at least three decades as a response to the HIV/AIDS crisis along with the Medically Supervised Injection Centre (MSIC) in Sydney “have popularized the notion” of safe injections sites “as the latest hot idea Most known safe injection sites were in Europe in 2016 but 85 per cent of journal articles then emanated from Vancouver (68 per cent) and Sydney “thus drawing attention to the dominance of well-funded research conducted by researchers at these two sites.” The Queen West Residents also cited a German study that “identifies parents of children as a group most likely to oppose drug consumption rooms.” Proximity to schools was a particular focus in this report but it also concluded that the Vancouver-Toronto comparisons were misleading: drug use is dispersed throughout the city and HIV infection rates are relatively low Toronto is not a port city where drugs enter the country Queen and Bathurst is not Hastings and Main: rather than a preponderance of single-room occupancy hotels for extremely marginalized people our neighbourhood has a rich and diverse mix of subsidized housing and million dollar homes; a vital business strip that attracts tourists to its shops cafes and bars; parks and playgrounds where children play and an elementary school in close proximity to the proposed site All of this is at stake in the proposed SIS social experiment the impact of which is unknown and cannot be predicted with certainty.” Safe injection sites may have improved things in areas such as East Vancouver but there was nothing comparable to that in Leslieville no data specific to the South Riverdale area was even cited in the staff implementation report signed by the medical officer of health A 2011 Supreme Court of Canada ruling related to Insite stressed that public health and public safety must be properly balanced when it comes to harm-reduction facilities Community support was a key element in determining the location of the first three safe injection sites in Toronto (there are now eight A 2012 feasibility study determined that safe injection sites would be difficult to place in certain areas due to lack of community support: affluent neighbourhoods the suburbs or neighbourhoods overburdened with drug-related facilities more affluent and suburban east-Toronto neighbourhoods such as Leaside or the Beaches weren’t even considered also happens to be the year my son was ready for kindergarten I went on a parents’ tour of Morse Street Junior Public School The principal showed us rooms that had been reclaimed from the daycare that operates in the same building A few of these classrooms were being refurbished so the school could handle the upcoming provincially mandated transition from half-day to full-day kindergarten which had almost been closed a few years earlier due to low attendance was expecting more than 130 students in kindergarten alone the next school year To drive home how drastically high this number was the principal disclosed how many students were graduating that spring from the school’s Grade 6 class: 12 my son was the 20th child on Heward Avenue back in 2010 There are now close to 100 children on Heward Leslieville would almost certainly be considered one of those no-go family neighbourhoods – The New York Times once hailed Leslieville as the next Williamsburg where hip young families gentrified a blue-collar neighbourhood with lightning speed It is now extremely unlikely that the city would even consider placing a new safe injection site in Leslieville never mind in such proximity to schools and daycares When the residents of Heward Avenue were advised that a safe injection site was opening in the health centre most of us assumed it meant that drug use would this was something my neighbours supported then almost all of whom live within three blocks of the safe injection site more than 72 per cent felt it should not be located within a block of schools and daycares this group generally felt that all community members would be better served if it were relocated 600 metres from schools They also believe that this safe injection site now dealing with clients who are using fentanyl 82 per cent of the time according to the centre’s website (the next largest drug consumed is crystal meth at nine per cent — not exactly what was conceived of a decade ago) better equipped to deal with the fentanyl crisis of today why more people were injecting drugs outside of his building than in his safe injection site He replied by saying that some users inhale drugs which they can’t do in the safe injection site But he quickly admitted that most of the use on the perimeter of the centre was by injection “It’s complicated” comes across as code for either “I don’t know” or “more users prefer to inject in a space that is not supervised.” “It’s complicated” was not the campaign slogan for what the city promised to neighbours like me in 2016 The question remains: How did this safe injection site come to create the problems that safe injection sites were purported to eliminate or decrease How did it birth a very concentrated drug problem where one didn’t previously exist One of the main contributing factors behind the speedy cultivation of the open-air drug emporium had to do with a policy that most nearby residents were unaware of until after the July 7 shooting the health centre posted an article on its website titled “New Study Published: Police presence near supervised consumption sites in Toronto discouraging access.” Researchers with the University of British Columbia interviewed clients at two Toronto safe injection sites These interviews revealed that “the presence of police produced anxieties and fears of arrest and harassment among clients.” the dial has moved on police engagement locally and provincially…” The study authors “recommend the establishment of a non-enforcement boundary outside of the (safe injection site) in order to lessen the effects of criminalization that drive some people who use drugs away from accessing services.” This non-enforcement boundary was quickly cited by Supt Kimberly O’Toole from Toronto Police’s 55 Division In relatively frank conversations O’Toole was having with residents she revealed that relations between police and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre had not been great (contrary to the glowing rapport presented in McKeown’s implementation report) Some centre staff had so tenaciously embraced the idea of a non-enforcement boundary that they were verbally disinviting police officers from being on or near the property The non-enforcement boundary may have been a laudable concept for the clients of this safe injection site but it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster for everyone else Those with addictions didn’t need to go inside the centre to use; they could do so outside with impunity they came to understand that the police simply weren’t coming and that the area around the centre was an ideal The research around the necessity for a void of policing for people seeking harm reduction had a massive hole in it — the necessity for safety for everyone else who lives and works around a safe injection site It took the death of Huebner-Makurat to expose that hole I watched eight officers from 55 Division on bicycles pull up to the centre’s rear door The officers in shorts were met by the new director of the safe injection site She was inviting them inside for an after-hours tour of the facility Police would no longer be disinvited from the perimeter; they would now be a constant presence outside and they would be coming right inside the lanes on either side of Heward Avenue became playgrounds during the pandemic the rear lanes that residents’ small parking garages opened onto were also filled up with the spillover from around the South Riverdale Community Health Centre I found one on top of my son’s hockey net one morning Kids were weaving their bikes around not just needles A young child had a beer can thrown at him I once removed human feces from a hopscotch course drawn with chalk by my neighbour’s children I was behind two young girls I didn’t know around the age of eight who were walking past the health centre As they turned the corner on the west side of the building were throwing haymakers at each other and slurring profane threats two men were shooting up against the centre’s wall Society’s most vulnerable are the children trying to play in the lanes behind their houses because they have no schools or parks to go to They didn’t seem to know what to do for a few seconds I asked them where they were going and then told them to follow me I walked in the front door of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre I asked to speak to the director of the safe injection site I was told her name was Leah Palmer and was given her number Palmer and I spoke on the phone for more than an hour a few days later When I described what was going on in the laneways and around the perimeter of the centre “The pandemic has been difficult for society’s most vulnerable.” “are the children trying to play in the lanes behind their houses because they have no schools or parks to go to Your clients are adults with addiction issues.” I found it baffling that this safe injection site could be less than 100 metres in a straight line from a junior public school with about 450 students and tolerate the level of drug-related activity that was occurring on and near its property Palmer said security for the outside of the building wasn’t likely in the cards She explained that safe injection sites had no funding for security I begged her to please do what she could to change that Palmer said she would make some inquires and get back to me What I didn’t find out until months later was that a half-dozen residents on my street had also met with Palmer at about the same time to make identical pleas for security created an online Google Sheets form so everyone on Heward Avenue could start submitting the drug-related activity they witnessed around the health centre My neighbours started tracking this activity in late May We contacted CEO Altenberg and told him we wanted a meeting Andrea and I had a meeting with the CEO and his senior staff Andrea put together a professional-looking deck that was filled with data Health centre management watched intently and a few even took photos of their screens as Andrea moved through the presentation The biggest activity captured was visible drug use at 46.3 per cent Not far behind were drug paraphernalia left out substance abuse requiring medical attention aggressive language or behaviour and drug selling — all taking place mostly on and around the South Riverdale Community Health Centre property and in the nearby lanes What was also interesting is that the activity captured was almost exactly evenly split between when the centre was open (9 a.m Whether the safe injection site was open or closed had literally zero bearing on the activity going on around the perimeter The site claims to reverse on average three overdoses a month residents called the police about four separate overdoses right next to its building when the doors were closed the last slide read: “Immediate Next Steps?” I’m sure you are all aware of the homeless crisis in this city I pointed out to him that there were no homeless people living on the perimeter of his health centre and that our neighbourhood had plenty of well-managed community housing and shelters He conceded that most of the 50 average monthly unique visitors who used his safe injection site lived in those Woodgreen Community Housing facilities It was hard to come away from that meeting without thinking that the centre’s senior management either had no idea how to fix what was going on outside their own building or that they had zero inclination to bother doing anything because they were OK with it Our second followup meeting with Altenberg and his senior staff took place on July 4 The meeting got off to a tense start because the residents’ expectation was that the centre would be presenting a detailed security plan they had reached out to their community safety team to talk about it who lives around the corner from the centre on Pape Avenue had joined the meeting as a representative for her street after her five-year-old son picked up a baggie containing a large chunk of orange fentanyl in the lane behind her house “What needs to happen for something to actually change?” she asked at the end of the virtual meeting The third meeting with the centre happened on Monday there were now four board members of the centre participating O’Toole from 55 Division and some senior members of her team were also on board O’Toole would later tell me that she wasn’t invited to the meeting by the South Riverdale Community Health Centre – she had been forced to invite herself to a meeting about community safety an organization that exists to enhance safety “especially in communities that have experienced trauma.” McKean stated that Altenberg had asked him to moderate the meeting and that he would outline the agenda Andrea set him straight about whose meeting this was (the residents’) and who would be determining the agenda (the residents) From that point on the meeting was about the unadulterated rage of the residents I expressed how inexplicably galling it was that the centre had hired a security firm for the exterior of the building only immediately after a woman had been killed by a drug dealer known to operate there The South Riverdale Community Health Centre staff said very little One board member meekly stated that the centre offered many other health services beyond the safe injection site and that the board was there to support those services following Andrea’s request that the board make its meeting minutes available is that the centre held a board meeting on the evening of July 10 The meeting was held in camera so minutes of what was discussed have not been provided to the public but the minutes indicate the meeting had two guests well-known public-relations executives in the city who have experience in the health-care realm Both had obviously been invited for their insight on the fourth item on the meeting agenda which was to approve a statement from the board in response to the shooting This statement from the board was posted on the centre’s website the next day It was the first salvo in what would become a very calculated damage-control campaign While expressing remorse and emphasizing that everyone deserves to live in a safe community the board’s statement in no way acknowledged the legitimate safety concerns presented by residents to the centre prior to July 7 that the centre bore any responsibility for what it had permitted on the outside of its property for years were asked to give their account of what it was like living near the injection site by numerous outlets Ontario Premier Doug Ford did a radio interview in the wake of the first arrest that focused on what happened at the safe injection site He acknowledged that the province was the primary funder of such injection sites Ford did not mince his words: “I’ve directed our team to look into this site and to make sure they’re in compliance He also said that “putting a safe injection site into a community” only attracts drug dealers Ford stated during the same interview that his team would be reaching out to the community began sending emails to his chief of staff and the minister’s chief of staff more than a month ago the centre provided no comments to reporters beyond its statement from the board The Toronto Star ran an article that day entitled “Leslieville health centre responds to swirling anger following death of bystander Karolina Huebner-Makurat.” The timing of the article felt intentional a town hall organized by Andrea and other concerned residents featured the following panellists: Toronto Police Supt Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Health; city councillor Paula Fletcher; Eileen de Villa the city’s current medical officer of health; Toronto-Danforth MP Julie Dabrusin; and centre CEO Jason Altenberg written by crime reporter Jennifer Pagliaro would later describe as “a story mostly from the perspective of the harm reduction side.” That is a diplomatic way of putting it It is not unfair to describe it as a piece of promotion for increased harm reduction services While Pagliaro refers to anger from the community in vague generalities (“spurred in part by commentary on neighbourhood Facebook groups”) she did not quote a single resident for the story What was even more alarming was that Pagliaro neglected to mention what the primary safety concern of the neighbourhood was – the fact that this safe injection site operated within 100 metres of two schools and three daycares (that likely house more than 1,000 children each school day) A line of TV cameras was out front of the Jimmie Simpson Recreation Centre when I arrived for the town hall on July 26 I recognized the man being interviewed when I approached the front doors who had moved into a house very close to the centre recently I was at the National Magazine Awards ceremony in 2015 when Cole won for his memoir in Toronto Life magazine about combatting the police practice of carding I have also won several awards for investigating police issues.) Cole was standing in front of a woman holding a sign that said “HEWARD AVE SUPPORTS SAFE INJECTION SITE.” When he finished speaking the cameras turned to me when I stated I also lived on Heward Avenue “There are 100 children who live on Heward Avenue…” were the only words I could get out before Cole began yelling in my ear which read: “WHOSE LIVES DO WE VALUE?” high for the cameras “I’m talking about all of the children on our street,” I said to the cameras the children on our street have had to take long detours to get to school in order to avoid what is going on outside of this safe injection site.” you’re driving the disenfranchised out of our neighbourhood!” At least he was being honest and clear about what his position was the safety of the children on our street was secondary to whatever came along with harm reduction Cole and his cohorts had reserved front-row seats for themselves not far from the panelists’ table There were likely more people standing than there were chairs set out I figure at least 300 people were in that hot and steamy community centre gymnasium Cole continued throughout the two-hour town hall with his disruptive interjections He didn’t like the questions community members had submitted (in advance) He didn’t have a lot of patience for talk about safety and accountability Cole was fortunate because about 90 per cent of what the panelists talked about was the need for harm reduction The safety of children was mentioned in general terms a few times but it was far from the focus the organizers surely intended people who strongly believe in safe injection sites are typically very apprehensive to engage in discussions about competing interests safe injection sites and schools could exist side by side You’re driving the disenfranchised out of our neighbourhood Concerned parents were clearly intimidated by a vocal minority at the town hall The handful of live questions time permitted at the end were mostly not even questions — they were just opportunities for harm-reduction proponents to speak their mind Perhaps the most important revelation from the town hall was the complex maze one must navigate to determine which agencies are responsible for overseeing what when it comes to safe injection sites got herself in some hot water shortly after the shooting when she said the city had nothing whatsoever to do with the independently run centre Not only does the city provide some funding to the centre Toronto Public Health is responsible for conducting inspections at least on an annual basis to determine that the safe injection site is documenting what type of harm-reduction supplies are found within a 15-metre perimeter around the facility and that logs of calls to police are up to date Speaking of the perimeter around the building residents had also discovered that the centre itself was responsible for the drug activity outside of the centre it advises that the South Riverdale safe injection site assume a “Zero-Tolerance Drug Selling Policy…on or near its premises.” Not only did the centre completely fail to enforce this policy but it also effectively promoted policies that encouraged drug dealing As with all safe injection sites in Canada the one at South Riverdale received a federal exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to administer drugs that are still technically illegal The exemption for South Riverdale’s safe injection site will need to be renewed again prior to November 2024 it is the province that provides the bulk of the funding to safe injection sites in Toronto Ontario’s Ministry of Health effectively wields the bulk of the oversight authority stated for the first time publicly that the South Riverdale safe injection site was being subjected to something called a critical incident review while reassuringly patting the arm of CEO Altenberg that this was not as severe as the full-blown audit the premier had implied was coming the centre’s damage-control campaign began to crystallize During the fourth residents’ meeting on July 17 — now deservedly referred to as “emergency meetings” — the centre and its board had still not presented a concrete safety plan who has since been elevated to interim board chair She was accused by residents of offering empty platitudes and of reading from a prepared script I felt that the centre and its board had still not even openly admitted the existence of residents’ safety concerns aired prior to the shooting I had asked for it to be recorded so that the recording could be provided to the appropriate oversight body by residents if the safe injection site were eventually audited or reviewed when I asked for the link to the Zoom recording to be distributed to the participants Hill informed me the board would need to vote on whether the centre could provide the residents with the recording This was not something she raised when everyone agreed to record the meeting I received a letter from the centre’s legal counsel stating that providing residents the recording of the meeting wouldn’t be “prudent.” the South Riverdale Community Health Centre decided to create its own committee to distribute public relations materials to residents announcing the creation of the Safer Community Committee Public Progress employees would soon go door-to-door on nearby streets This is worth noting because the safe injection site had been obligated for years to be hyper-engaged with the community due to its proximity to schools and daycares – and wasn’t The centre also obtained funding to hire a security firm called One Community Solutions an outfit that apparently had experience at other safe injection sites in the city Given that the residents of my street had been told there was no budget for security at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre the thousands of dollars the centre was now presumably spending on Granofsky Public Progress and the legal fees of Jarvis Granofsky announced that the Safer Community Committee would have more than two dozen members a mix of “neighbours,” local business owners centre board members and those with “professional expertise,” some of whom were harm-reduction proponents A few of those listed as “neighbours” – who also happen to be known harm-reduction proponents – lived nowhere near the site The first meeting in late July was well-attended but it was taken up with laying the ground rules and introductions Attendance at the second of four scheduled meetings (the other two are in September) on August 3rd was not nearly as robust The people most affected will always show up Our residents group continues to meet weekly to ensure as much as possible can be done before the children in our neighbourhood go back to school Many parents are understandably concerned for their children’s safety Discarded needles have been found in the schoolyard of Morse Street Junior Public School throughout the summer A needle was also recently found at another nearby school While Andrea has already overseen more positive safety initiatives than the centre’s committee can ever hope to the Safer Community Committee is ultimately under the centre’s umbrella Residents’ level of trust in the centre to be transparent and open about what has transpired is extremely low Our most recent weekly residents’ safety meeting was August 15 the day Khalia Mohammed’s arrest was made public the centre opened late due to an emergency internal meeting Rumours swirled that Toronto Public Health was taking over South Riverdale’s safe injection site One residents’ group was organizing to call for the wholesale resignation of the centre’s CEO and its entire board Lawsuits and injunctions are being drawn up by various parties as I write press secretary for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones reiterated to the CBC that the ministry had launched a critical incident review of the safe injection site in July The political dynamics at play here are a tad unusual Tabuns asked the health minister “to carry out a special audit of the Centre’s CTS [Consumption and Treatment Services] to see whether it is operating in accordance with protocols that you have set out for these facilities.” The Toronto Sun may have aided the minister in this standoff to some extent. It interviewed Dr. Sharon Koivu, a doctor specializing in addictions who opened a safe injection site in London, Ont. Koivu went on record saying that the South Riverdale site had lost its way. Specifically, she criticized the site’s publicized no-judgment philosophy, which Koivu said had “no expectation and no desire for people to stop using drugs.” “That is like a cancer doctor refusing to offer a patient chemotherapy because it might be uncomfortable,” Koivu told the Sun. The Good Samaritan referenced two specific events I had been at the centre to witness for myself. Two weeks earlier, swarms of police cars arrived to respond to complaints someone was threatening people with a knife inside the centre. A week later, police raced to the scene again when someone was reported wielding a firearm inside the centre. Police told me directly on both occasions that they had not been able to apprehend the suspects. As the charges against those accused in the death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat are presented and expanded on before the courts, it is more likely than not that details will emerge, providing everyone with a better understanding of what was going on not just outside the centre, but inside as well. Unfortunately, I doubt these revelations will make anyone in the neighbourhood feel safer.