Seniors worry about mobile drug-injection site
Proposed vehicle would increase crime in East Village, opponents fear
A Calgary senior is raising concerns that a proposed mobile safe-consumption site will increase crime in the downtown East Village and other areas it is intended to serve.
The10-metre-long-vehicle-would make stops in regular locations in the city ’s east downtown and parts further into southeast Calgary, focused on harm reduction for users of opioids and other hard drugs in those neighbourhoods.
That prospect doesn’t sit well with senior Roy Stuart, who moved into the area three years ago and was notified Wednesday about public information sessions on the service later this month.
“We already have problems with the Drop-In Centre and if you have a safe-injection site, it’ll only get worse,” said Stuart, 78.
“A lot of seniors here are scared to death because they can’t defend themselves, and there’s a lot of families with kids, too.”
Stuart said late last month, while he sat in his car in the city’s Mission area, he was attacked by a man believed to be high on drugs.
He’s afraid the mobile unit will attract more unstable individuals to an area that he had hoped would leave its blighted past behind.
“This redevelopment is designed to upgrade the whole East Village area and, of course, it affects property values,” Stuart said.
Two facilities serving the destitute — the Calgary Drop-In Centre and the Salvation Army Centre of Hope — were in East Village before its current transformation.
Concerns over the safe-consumption service to be provided by HIV Community Link have been expressed by area residents and businesses, said Clare LePan, spokeswoman for the Calgary Municipal Land Corp., which is overseeing East Village’s transformation.
“We have some initial concerns about seeing additional stress but there’s a need for harm reduction,” LePan said.
“It’s important we understand more about the project and go through this engagement process properly.”
The unit will be parked at regular sites where the need is greatest, said HIV Community Link executive director Leslie Hill.
“It will be at specific, pre-determined locations based on the data where EMS response to overdoses is happening most,” she said.
Other jurisdictions’ experience in using the approach that enables users to administer previously purchased substances in a supervised environment is that it reduces existing drug use on local streets and the resulting discarded paraphernalia, Hill said.
And instead of attracting drug users to the area, “it’s planned for an area where it’s already happening, it’s really addressing the needs in the specific area.”
Alberta Health has already provided $800,000 in startup funding that will include the cost of the vehicle currently being built.
If the program is granted a federal exemption in the late fall, the service is expected to start soon after, with as much as $1.9 million in annual federal funding, Hill said.
It would be staffed by nurses and social workers who would also offer education and referrals for housing and human services.
As of May 6, Alberta had recorded 228 fentanyl deaths in 2018, 112 of those in Calgary, which has long experienced the largest number of fatalities in the province.
That’s on track for about 100 more deaths than the 583 in 2017, which was the deadliest so far in Alberta.
“We’re seeing an escalation in the instances of carfentanil being found, which is quite disturbing — people overdose quite rapidly,” said Hill.
A pair of two-hour public information sessions are to be held at the St. Louis Hotel, 430 8th Ave. S.E., on Aug. 27 at 5 p.m. and Aug. 29 at 7 p.m.
Others will be held in September.
We already have problems with the Drop-In Centre and if you havea safe-injection site, it’ll only get worse.