The Kitchener Consumption and Treatment Service (CTS) site will have to close its doors by Mar. 31, 2025. The location at 150 Duke St. W. is operated by Sanguen Health Centre.
Since the site opened in October 2019, it has seen over 55,000, with over 60 new clients visiting in August 2024. Since 2019, the site has also reversed 1,031 overdoses.
In an announcement from the provincial government earlier this month, Sylvia Jones, Minister of Health in Ontario, said the province would ban operation of the CTS sites within 200 meters of schools and child-care centres. Kitchener’s site, being within 200 meters of a daycare, falls under this category.
“We’re certainly seeing a need for this service,” Julie Kalbfleisch, Director of Communications at Sanguen said.
Care at the Kitchener CTS goes beyond supervised consumption and overdose prevention services. The site also offers harm reduction supplies, Naloxone kits, sharps disposal, drug checking, primary care, and mental health and addiction support.
One of the most important components for staff at the Kitchener CTSis the connections they can build with folks.
“Our goal is to keep people alive,” Kalbfleisch said.
“[Human connection] is part of an important part of continuum of healthcare for folks that are struggling with addiction,” she said.
CTS staff and clients have been concerned about the impact the closure will have on clients and the gap it will leave in the community.
“Staff and clients are very concerned, they’re very scared and sad. We’ve had clients say to us that they’re afraid they’re going to die when it closes and that is something that we’re afraid of too. It’s pretty heartbreaking. These are folks that we get to know and that we care about and love,” Kalbfleisch said.
In addition to the clients who access the CTS, staff are concerned about the 19 peer workers currently employed at the site who will lose their jobs.
“[Peer workers] all have lived or living experience, and for them this is a really unique and important opportunity to earn an income but also feel valuable in the community, to help people and give back,” Kalbfleisch said.
In response, staff, clients and friends of the Kitchener CTS have taken various steps to advocate for a life-saving service. For example, one staff member organized a letter-writing campaign to the minister of health.
“We’ve had just an outpouring of folks and especially clients who want to talk about and share how the CTS has not only saved their life but actually improved their life,” Kalbfleisch said.
Another key service that will be lost along with the CTS is the drug-checking program, which provides information to people who use drugs about the substance they are planning on using.
“We can say officially that since [the CTS] opened in 2019 we reversed about 1,031 overdoses, but you can’t account for the ones that we prevented in the first place,” Kalbfleisch said.
In instances where the drug-checking program made an individual aware that their product contained something other than what they were expecting—for example, something dangerous or harmful—they changed their behavior.
“It’s a really excellent example of how innovation and technology really play into reducing harm for folks.”
From a different perspective, the defunding of CTS has also been a topic of interest for The Region of Waterloo councillor Rob Deutschmann.
Shortly after the news, Deutschmann tabled a motion asking the council to petition the provincial government to reverse its defunding plans for CTS sites.
“The government’s decision to close didn’t seem to be based on any factual information. For some reason, it seems to be some knee-jerk response,” Deutschmann said.
While Deutschmann said he does not believe the government will ultimately reverse their decision, he remains hopeful in finding an alternative solution.
“I’m also having discussions with different advocacy groups that may bring a legal challenge to the province’s actions,” Deutschmann said.
“I think that there’s a very strong charter argument to be made here, and I’m hoping that we will be able to find some person or organization that will be able to bring that legal challenge,” he said.
In their recent announcement, the provincial government cited concerns about an increase in crime and danger to the public in the areas surrounding CTS sites.
Both Deutschmann and Kalbfleisch disputed those claims.
Deutschmann said the CTS in Kitchener was working exactly how it was intended.
“Mental health, drug addiction and homelessness are the trifecta of tsunami of things that are making our situation worse in our community. The people at the CTS are among those in the front line trying to deal with all those issues,” Deutschmann said.
“How much worse it will be now that they’re planning to close the CTS, now you’re forcing everyone to use in the community…how many people are going to die from that?” he said.
Before the CTS opened, Kalbfleisch noted that public consumption and overdoses were a more prominent concern.
“We have a lot of folks in the neighbourhood who really support having the CTS. They remember what it was like before, and they’ve seen a great deal of improvement around public safety and the needle debris and things like that,” she said.
“It’s something that I’m worried we’re going to start seeing again in a high volume, and, of course, my biggest concern is the number of people who are at risk of dying.”
Since opening in 2019, CTS has had regular touchpoints with surrounding neighbourhood associations and building owners. In addition, there have been regular check-ins with the childcare centres in the vicinity.
“We heard from one of [the childcare centres] who said that they have no problems at all and didn’t understand why this decision was being made,” Kalbfleisch said.
With the defunding of CTS sites across Ontario, the provincial government advocates for municipalities to apply for Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs as a replacement.
“We support having a HART hub come to the region. We think that’s an important gap to fill, we’re always going to say yes to more opportunities for treatment and treatment beds,” Kalbfleisch said.
While in support of the new model being added to the community’s overall plan, Kalbfleisch said it is only one piece of the puzzle.
“HART hubs are an important piece of the puzzle, but I also think that CTS and harm reduction are important, and they work together,” she said.
While a common misconception is that harm reduction and services such as CTS are supposed to resolve the opioid crisis, Kalbfleisch explained that the CTS is just one pillar of many needed when looking at healthcare for individuals struggling with addiction from a holistic lens.
It is important to note that, while the new model will support folks who are ready for an abstinence-based treatment program, harm reduction works to meet individuals where they are until they are ready to take the next step towards treatment.
“Recovery is a very different beast for each person. It’s not a straight line,” Kalbfleisch said.
“Someone may need to go into recovery, on average, seven or eight times. So, you need to have that loop, so they have a safe place wherever they land in that continuum, and that’s what we’re here for,” she said.
In an earlier and the print version of this article published on Oct. 3, 2024, Julie Kalbfleisch was referred to as “Julia Kalbfleisch”. This has been corrected in the online version.
Leave a Reply