By; The Stinson Elders

(8/22/22 US News) Last August, California Governor vetoed a bill allowing LA, Oakland and San Francisco to set up sites where opioid users could legally inject drugs under supervision. (The Harm in Harm Reduction, Spring 2020) A Simon Fraser University study found that, “From 2005 to 2015, the number of homeless addicts migrating to the Downtown Eastside from outside the neighborhood increased from 17 percent to 52 percent of the overall population…More than 1,500 overdoses a year have taken place within a block of the Downtown Eastside Insite facility.”    CTSs success is questionable but the problems they cause are without doubt; they increase crime, social disorder, and drug dealer numbers.

The border between Wards 2 & 3, Wellington St., is important to many of Ward 3’s residents.  Ward 3 had 25.2% of the Opioid deaths (per Hamilton Paramedics for the five years ending 2021), 74.8% were spread unequally throughout ALL wards of Hamilton, with 39.8% in Ward 2.  The Spec said that the CTSs had to go where the problem was, yet Ward 3 is getting 100% of those sites (1.6 km apart!) in an attempt to clean up the core.  They should be distributed throughout Hamilton based on incident numbers. (746 Barton Street East is within 200 meters of St. Ann Catholic Elementary, and 430 Cannon Street East is 247 meters from Cathedral Highschool.  Would you want your children there?)  Sacrificing portions of Ward 3 is an unacceptable and unconscionable solution!