2 weeks Ago By Iris Dyck
Residents of Winnipeg’s Point Douglas neighbourhood are holding a town hall meeting about the province’s first supervised consumption site in response to what they say is a lack of consultation with area residents. The proposed location for the site is 200 Disraeli Freeway. The site is still under review by Health Canada, who would need to provide an exemption under Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to operate.
Point Douglas resident Christine Kirouac has lived in Point Douglas for five years. She says repeated thefts, break-ins and violence fuelled by addiction have left the neighbourhood feeling defeated. “It’s stressful to live here,” she said.
Kirouac says she and other residents on the Point Douglas Residents’ Committee don’t oppose a supervised consumption site. “We want to focus on helping the addicts, too — that’s going to benefit us, it’s going to benefit the community. We are all a part of the same community,” she said.
But she does question why Point Douglas was chosen — and why community members like herself weren’t consulted. “You’re putting a safe consumption site in an area that’s not stable to begin with, that does not have a laundromat, does not have a grocery store, does not have basic amenities,” she said. “It shouldn’t be normal for kids to walk to school and get stuck with needles.
That should not be acceptable in any neighbourhood, and wouldn’t be, other than Point Douglas, I believe. If this was going on in Charleswood, this wouldn’t happening.” Kirouac says without housing supports and treatment options, the addictions-fuelled crime in the neighbourhood will continue.
Housing, Addictions and Homelessness minister Bernadette Smith says the site will include those supports. “It’s about connecting people to the care and supports they need,” she said. “There’s going to be mental health workers there, there is going to be addictions workers there, there’s going to be primary health care workers there.
” “As the MLA for Point Douglas, I would not be advocating for this to be in Point Douglas if I didn’t think that it was bringing the support to the community and that the community didn’t need this,” Smith said. The provincial NDP promised a supervised consumption site in their election campaign. The closest thing to one operating in Manitoba is Sunshine House’s Mobile Overdose Prevention Site (MOPS).
Executive Director Levi Foy says residents’ concerns are valid, and that the situation is “nuanced”. He says the MOPS operates in Point Douglas due to the overwhelming need in the area. “We knew from our partners what they were experiencing and what they continue to experience because of the lack of available services.
Things like having to manage a shelter or a drop-in program or a housing program, but at the same time, you’re asking all of your staff and your team and the people who live and use those spaces to also be responding to overdoses every shift,” he said. “I think that we have to really take into consideration the realities of what people who are using substances, where they’re using and where they have to use because there’s not a lot of options aside from an RV that’s open five days a week.” Foy says a supervised consumption site would take some pressure off of MOPS, which was intended to be a “supplemental service” to a more comprehensive addictions plan.
‘We were designed to see maybe five people an hour...
that was our hope, but we see 300 people at minimum in a four-hour period,’ he said. Point Douglas Residents’ Committee has invited stakeholders like Minister Smith, Mayor Gillingham, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and the Downtown BIZ to the town hall meeting, which takes place Tuesday night at 6 p.m.
at Ashdown Market..
