In today’s episode journalist Jonathan Bradley reports on a new, city-wide harm reduction program, designed to provide pharmaceutical alternatives to toxic street drugs; and we’ll hear a report from a recent event in Moss Park, supporting a campaign to prevent encampment evictions from outdoor locations in Toronto. 

Toronto and Canadian governments announced $7.7 million for harm reduction initiatives in the city on April 14. These three projects will increase access to safe supply programs and provide a first of its kind treatment option for addictions. These projects will provide a pharmaceutical alternative to the toxic street drug supply, which is meant to prevent overdoses. Additional funding will be provided to select community health centers in Toronto to extend safer supply programs. Jonathan Bradley spoke with Paulos Ghebreyesus, the executive director of a Regent Park Community Health Center to learn more.

The funding proposal was put together by three organizations in our neighborhood, the South Riverdale Community Health Center, the Regent Park Community Health Center, as well as Street Health. The proposal was submitted to Health Canada and is seen as an additional intervention that we community health organizations can offer as an option to community members that are trying to keep themselves safe.

The Regent Park area is home to many people who are struggling with homelessness, people who are struggling with mental illness and addictions. And over the past year during the pandemic, there was such a massive disruption in programs and services, and in particular in the Downtown East side where Regent Park is located. Paulos Ghebreyesus, attributes the increase in the number of overdoses that occurred in the area as directly correlated to a fairly sharp decrease in the number of people who are coming to access consumption and treatment services.

For someone who is struggling with mental health issue is currently homeless, and is using substances, the notion of trying to enforce or impose a set of regulations on that person's behaviour has proven to be counterproductive to the system and to society. The implementation Harm Reduction programs is seen as a way of putting human perspective first and not focusing on the behaviour alone.