It may not look different from the outside, but inside the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, the supervised consumption site has been upgraded.
“We have installed a brand new HVAC system,” said Derrick St. John, the centre’s consumption and treatment site interim director. “So we’re having about six times the amount of air exchanges in the room.”
The new ventilation system means they can once again open the doors for clients who can use drugs under supervision.
“It’s an amazing feeling after being closed for four months,” said St. John.
The site was forced to temporarily shut down after harmful fumes from drugs made several staff members ill. Somerset West Community Health Centre also experienced a similar issue.
“Yeah, some people had some pretty some bad nausea, some headaches and felt unwell,” said St. John. “Hopefully that new HVAC will keep everyone safe and healthy.”
The closure meant more people openly using drugs on the streets.
“What I’m hearing from the community is that the problems that were already prevalent in that area in the north end of Sandy Hill have just become more and more common. More public drug use, public drug trafficking and just social disorder,” explained OPS acting Sgt. Paul Stam with the Neighbourhood Policing Directorate.
Sandy Hill resident Calla Barnett and her 12-year-old child Cindy used to live near Centre 454, the Ottawa Mission and the consumption site, but moved to the south end of Sandy Hill to get away from it all.
“I didn’t want my child to have to walk to and from the bus to and from school,” said Barnett who is the acting chair of resident association Action Sandy Hill. “Every day we’re encountering people smoking or injecting drugs on the street.”
It comes as the city grapples with an opioid epidemic, most visible in its downtown core.
“It just shows that we need a lot of help from the province and the feds,” said Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stephanie Plante. “We’re very good here in Ottawa providing that first step, connecting people with some basic frontline services but, you know, we need way, way more than that.”
With the consumption site reopen, the hope is that it helps address some of the issues. But not all residents are as optimistic.
“Maybe it’ll get better,” said Barnett. “But the experience of us, of the people here, is that it doesn’t get better when they open. It gets worse.”