Church outreach questions impacts of supervised consumption site in East Calgary

CALGARY (CityNews) — It’s a hot spot for opioid overdoses.

East Calgary, which includes Forest Lawn, is one of the hardest hit by the drug crisis, according to data from Alberta Health.

Some people are questioning whether a supervised consumption site would only make the neighbourhood’s struggles with addictions worse.

Staff with Victory Outreach say the Narcotics Anonymous meetings they host are packed seven days a week. They applaud harm reduction advocates for recognizing a problem, but stress people are waiting on treatment.

“There’s in between times that we lose addict after addict just because we don’t have the capacilty to take them but we’ll help them do their drugs, but we just won’t help them get healthy in the in-between times and it hurts,” said Nathan Williams, pastor at Eastside Victory Outreach. “Our hearts break because this is someone’s kid.”

The building has a brand new bucket for collecting used needles and staff are doing morning clean-ups for condoms and needles and say it’s only become worse in recent months.

But it insists, it sets clear boundaries.

“If we were to give in or supply everything they needed, it prevents any sort of drive, I think, as far as how they want to heal,” he said. “We just find if there are certain agencies or that they’re being enabled in their addiction then there’s no responsibility for them to want to walk through those services.”

With just under two years in operation, the downtown Safework site is approaching 100 thousand visits. Last month they responded to 39 overdoses.

It also made almost 250 referrals last month that included connecting people to opioid dependency programs.

Williams says there are already people using drugs behind the building and but this facility is dry.

“It’s not loving to give them the things that going to hurt them, it’s loving to champion the person, the potential of who they are.”