Do supervised injection sites bring crime and disorder? Advocates and residents disagree

Thestar.com
August 16, 2018
Samantha Beattie

Since drug injection sites opened around Moss Park last year, residents say they’re finding more used needles strewn in laneways, dealers selling drugs in plain sight and people verbally attacking passersby.

The harm reduction workers in the neighbourhood, on the other hand, who help some of Toronto’s most vulnerable residents, insist the problems aren’t new, that poverty, mental illness and addiction have long plagued the community, and what matters most is that lives are being saved as an opioid epidemic rages in Toronto and across the country.

What both sides agree on is that the drug injection sites bring out into the open what was previously hidden behind closed doors and in dark alleyways.

Now, people visit the sites throughout the day and into the evening to safely inject their drugs as trained volunteers make sure they don’t overdose. In between visits they sit and chat outside, or doze in the August heat. But where they go afterward remains a concern for community leaders who want more addiction treatment services, mental health supports, homeless shelters and affordable housing.

“If there’s an increase in crime, it’s not about the sites,” said Zoe Dodd, a harm reduction worker who co-organized the pop-up injection site at Moss Park, which later received federal approval to keep operating. “It has more to do with the increase in poverty and social inequality. We put the sites where people are already congregating, using and dying.”

In the past year, four sites near Moss Park have opened: one on Victoria St., one on Queen St. E. and two on Dundas St. E. This week, local Councillor Lucy Troisi called for a moratorium, saying four sites within walking distance are more than the community can handle. Neighbouring Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam backed her up, agreeing there’s been a significant increase in crime, needles and garbage on streets and in parks.

Wong-Tam said she has met with concerned residents about crime and safety much more frequently this year and last than in previous years. She wants more support from all levels of government to address the root causes of addiction.

“This is not a NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) community. Their biggest challenge is they don’t believe the government response is co-ordinated,” Wong-Tam said.

The city is in the process of hiring eight additional harm reduction workers and has increased park maintenance, city staff overdose training and laneway cleanups in the area, said Wong-Tam.

In July, Premier Doug Ford said his government would spend some of Ontario’s $1.9 billion that was earmarked for mental health and addiction supports on police initiatives. This week Queen’s Park announced it would freeze three planned injection sites, including one in Toronto’s west end, and review the program. A day later, Toronto police announced seven people have died of opioid overdoses since Aug. 2.

“If that happened in any other context --we lost seven lives --we’d be heartbroken but also angry and deeply concerned, as I am,” Tory told reporters Wednesday, calling for the provincial government to finish its review “on a very expeditious basis.

“Let’s get this done quickly because lives are at stake,” Tory said.

Last year, 303 people in the city fatally overdosed.

Crime has increased in the Moss Park area (bordered by Gerrard and Front Sts., and Jarvis and Parliament Sts.) since at least 2014, long before any injection sites, according to Toronto Police Service data. In 2014, police reported 623 offences, compared to 713 in 2016. The majority of offences were assaults.

But in 2017, the same year supervised injection sites began opening in the area, the number of offences dropped to 680, with fewer assaults and robberies, but half a dozen more thefts over $5,000. Neighbourhood-specific data isn’t yet available for 2018.

What little research exists on drug injection sites suggests they don’t cause an increase in serious crime. When Vancouver opened its first injection site, the community raised similar concerns. However, University of British Columbia researchers found there were no increases in drug trafficking, assaults or robberies, and a slight decline in vehicle thefts in the neighbourhood, according to a 2006 study.

But Councillor Troisi said petty crime in Toronto often goes unreported and residents’ diminished quality of life isn’t reflected in police statistics.

“Someone falling asleep on your front lawn every other week or defecating in your laneway does not show up on a police crime statistic,” she said.

Thursday morning, one man read a newspaper while waiting for the Public Health-run centre on Victoria St. to open. A woman walked out of the building, yelling unintelligibly at a security guard, as tourists and people in suits hurried by.

Farther east on Dundas St., near Sherbourne St., the owner of a dry-cleaning shop pointed to his boarded-up front window that someone had smashed with a brick, the first time it had happened in his 24 years in business, he said.

Nearby resident Glen Simourd looked over a public garden he’s tended for more than a decade where lately he’s found people passed out between crushed shrubs and broken flower stems.

“This is the worst influx since the 1980s when crack cocaine hit the streets,” said Simourd, who has lived near Moss Park for more than 40 years and is a member of the Garden District Residents Association. “The sites have brought more people with problems to our neighbourhood, and we already had our share.

“I’m not against safe injection sites. I’m against where they’re located.”

He said the sites should be located in hospitals and spread more widely throughout the city.

At a nearby convenience store, near a drop-in centre and injection site, two employees said they’ve recently been punched in the face, were threatened at knifepoint, and watched as drug deals took place near the back. Lately, they’ve stopped reporting these incidents to police.

“This place is crazy,” said Chris Kim.

“We hope police can pay more attention to this area,” Thomas Seol added.

Toronto police did not respond to requests for comment from the Star this week to talk about the residents’ concerns.