Belong Ottawa, the Anglican Community Ministry with three locations, has received an $86,000 grant to help staff deal with a burgeoning drug use problem in the city. The grant from the federal government’s Social Services Recovery Fund will allow Belong Ottawa to train staff to administer first aid to drug users.
The rise in drug use “has changed the nature of the behaviour of the people we see,” says Rachel Robinson, Belong Ottawa’s executive director. “Our frontline social support workers have difficult and stressful jobs. They are dedicated and hard-working, and we are so grateful for these additional resources.”
The surge in drug abuse has coincided with another challenge facing the agency, an influx of asylum seekers to Ottawa, some with children, looking for food and other supports.
The good news is that the staff of 44 is stable and rising to both challenges, though not without some fallout along the way. Twenty-seven staffers are getting additional training to help them assist drug victims. A few, suffering burnout, have left, and Robinson says it’s difficult to recruit experienced replacements.
“It’s put huge pressure on the staff,” she says. “Our staff never went into this work thinking they were going to be spending a lot of time doing first aid. A few years ago, it would have been unusual to be doing any, but now we’re having to do it on a weekly basis.”
The surge in drug use has rekindled longstanding opposition to Belong Ottawa’s Centre 454 location on King Edward Avenue based on drug use spilling out into neighbouring streets. (Drugs are not permitted inside.) The board of one of the nearby condominiums has protested in a letter to the Rev. Michael Garner of the host church, St Albans, copying Bishop Shane Parker.
The opposition has contributed to the formation of a community liaison committee by the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre. It aims to work with all stakeholders and residents in a search for positive solutions.
One of the issues is that users who smoke drugs won’t walk to the safe injection site because smoking isn’t allowed. It has been suggested that establishing a safe inhalation site would help.
Both Robinson and Garner are on the committee and see it as the best way forward. Garner says letters of complaint aren’t as useful as doing the hard work to come up with solutions. Drug use is a reality, and Centre 454 is in the business of saving human lives.
There are no easy answers, Robinson says. “I think our position is that we think it’s right to help people and that improves the overall situation, as opposed to just moving or closing.”
Instead, the focus is on ways to further improve the Centre 454 location to meet current and future demand.
Recently, the plumbing system broke down because it was never intended to handle 14 showers and 10 laundry loads on a typical day. Repairs restored service but a permanent fix will require a major plumbing overhaul. In addition, dead space on the property is being closed off to reduce problematic use.
In contrast to the drug issue, the concurrent challenge is the sharp increase in people looking for food because of price inflation. Many are asylum seekers who have migrated to Ottawa while exhausting their resources.
As a result, Belong Ottawa’s food budget has jumped from $100,000 annually to more than $140,000. Grants of $10,000 each have come from the Ottawa Community Foundation and the City of Ottawa. Meals have been added at Centre 454, running at about 100 daily. Belong Ottawa’s total service is at 290 meals for a typical day, all prepared out of The Well location.
As some asylum seekers speak languages other than English or French, interpreters have been hired. And as winter approaches some extra costs can be anticipated to cover unforeseen emergencies.
On a typical day, Belong Ottawa’s three locations record 262 visitors; 292 meals served; 31 harm reduction kits given out; 29 showers, 16 loads of laundry and 66 basic supplies provided.
While core funding is stable it doesn’t cover rising costs. “We are in a situation where we have to rely on fund-raised dollars and the additional grants,” Robinson says.
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