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Susan Shaw’s commute to work through the downtown core is not the same as it used to be.

For the longtime resident of the Palisades condo building, located across from the Sheldon M. Chumir Centre in the Beltline, what was once a pleasant stroll has become an obstacle course of discarded needles and drug users who congregate around the Safeworks supervised drug consumption site.

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Around the corner from her building, a handwritten sign stating “No druggy’s allowed to come” is taped to the front door of the Happy Together convenience store at 14th Avenue and 4th Street S.W.

“If the police are supposed to be making this safer, I don’t feel safer,” said Shaw. “Probably in the last month, it’s worse than I’ve ever seen it.”

Brendan Miller/Postmedia

A January report showed that a 250-metre zone near the Safeworks inside the Chumir centre has become ground zero for drug, violent and property crimes in the downtown.

Stats from 2018 showed a 276 per cent increase in drug-related calls to police in the zone, along with a 29 per cent rise in the overall number of calls for service compared with the three-year average.