Some of Toronto's supervised consumption sites are extending their hours, moving to keep their doors open longer as they absorb a growing wave of people seeking their services. The expansion comes just weeks after two sites in the city were shut down, leaving the remaining services to handle demand that staff say has climbed sharply.
The scale of that demand is striking to the people running the sites. One operator said they have seen a dramatic increase since opening, with visits up by roughly 100 per cent compared with the same time last year. The numbers this month are doubling again, and staff anticipate that by the end of the year they will be serving about three times as many people as they were 18 months ago.
To meet the pressure, individual sites are adding hours. Casey House is extending its weekday hours, keeping its service open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The longer schedule is meant to give people more of the day to reach supervised services, rather than being left to use drugs alone and unmonitored when the doors would otherwise be closed.
Another site is stretching its availability further across the week. Street Health, at Dundas and Sherbourne, is adding 15 hours of service each week, widening the window during which people can come in. The additions reflect an effort by the sites still operating to help fill the gaps left by the recent closures elsewhere in the city.
The strain on the system traces back to a funding decision. The province cut funding earlier this year, a move that forced the closure of numerous safe consumption sites across the area. Those closures concentrated demand onto the services that remain open, driving up the visit numbers that operators are now reporting month over month.
The province has framed its approach as a shift in strategy rather than a retreat. The Ministry of Health says it is investing 560 million dollars in treatment hubs across the province instead, with a focus on rehabilitation. That reorientation, away from supervised consumption and toward recovery, sits at the center of the debate now playing out on Toronto's streets.