What does it mean to me? Everything'

Users of Moss Park safe drug site fear losing a lifeline when centre closes

- DAVID RIDER

A few minutes after Tony Williams injects drugs, his friendly banter stops, he slumps in the chair and his head sinks. Nurse Keren Elumir is immediately at his side, talking calmly to him, checking his pulse and sliding an oxygen mask on his face.

Williams survived the mild overdose Thursday at the Moss Park safe consumption site, but might not be alive had he shot up at home, as he has done in the past. He’s not alone. Staff at this site on Sherbourne Street near Queen Street East reversed 517 overdoses last year.

“What does it mean to me? Everything,” he said of the homey, friendly multi-room facility with tables and lounge space, food, pictures drawn by visitors but also a wall of photos of some of the many — Hughie, Angie, Slim, Frenchie, Frank and others — who died in alleys and other spots outside these walls amid an epidemic in opioid overdoses.

“If they didn’t have this here, you know how many people would be dead?” said Williams, called “Uncle Tony” by the staff. “I’ve come since it opened, I love these guys. We all know each other. If there’s ever a problem, they’re here for you.”

On Wednesday, the Ford government said any safe injection site within 200 metres of a school or daycare must close, in addition to a moratorium it had previously imposed on any new site applications. Moss Park is closing because the building’s owners plan to redevelop it as condominiums, but the ban on new sites means it will not be allowed to relocate.

Though Premier Doug Ford’s brother Rob publicly struggled with addiction before getting treatment at a private Muskoka facility, the premier said in April he was “dead set” against supervised consumption sites, believing they have been ineffective and that facilities’ focus should be on rehabilitation.