A longstanding harm-reduction program in Parkdale has lost its funding from Toronto Public Health, leading to concern and an outpouring of support from the community.

Parkdale Community Health Centre operates a harm reduction room that provides clean crack pipes, needles and condoms to drug users, sex workers and other vulnerable people in the neighbourhood in an effort to lower the risk of disease.

The program has been funded almost entirely by Toronto Public Health for most of its 24 years. But this year its application for renewed funding was unsuccessful, and the support ran out on June 30. The health centre collected almost 1,300 names on a petition, appealed the decision and presented its case at Monday’s board of health meeting, again unsuccessfully.

Toronto Public Health’s Jann Houston would not comment on the specifics of the decision not to renew Parkdale’s funding. The panel that made the decision approved 44 of 72 applications.

“It is always a very difficult decision for the review panel because there are a number of organizations competing for access to the same amount of funding,” Houston said.

Filling needs in Parkdale is “certainly a concern,” she added, and Public Health is looking at ways to reduce risk in the community by making its mobile harm-reduction van, “The Works,” available; boosting training for administering naloxone, which mitigates the effects of a drug overdose; and encouraging people to use other harm reduction clinics.

While there isn’t money available for Parkdale right now, Houston urged the clinic to apply for the next round of funding in November.

Bronwyn Underhill says the centre has been able to has been able to cobble together some funding from other sources and expects to continue running the program.

“But that being said, we do need to find another funding source because what we’ve put together is on a very limited basis, and we had to reduce the service anyways to be able to keep running it.”

One staff member was let go and hours were reduced for the remaining peer-support workers, people from the community who may have a history of drug or alcohol abuse and can empathize with people using the program.

Underhill says one reason the program was denied funding was high staff turnover, but she says that’s typical in this kind of work.

If the program were to close, Underhill says, it would lead to a local increase in reuse and sharing of needles and crack pipes. It would also mean that more of these materials end up being left on the streets, since the program also collects used items for safe disposal.

“For a lot of people, they consider that it saved their lives, so they’re very committed to having this program in the community,” she adds.

Kathy Pinheiro says she’s proud to be a peer-support worker in the Parkdale harm reduction program and worries about the effects of lost funding on her co-workers. She says having a drop-in space instead of a van is key for many members of the community.

“When you’re a drug user or homeless, you tend to be isolated, you tend to be forgotten about. This is a place where people they remember. They become a family.”

Related:

Harm reduction more effective than war on drugs: Vancouver study

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Council supports harm-reduction strategy for drugs

‘I’m a person who uses drugs’: Fiorito