Moss Park overdose prevention site is moving indoors in June

After nine months outdoors, the Moss Park overdose prevention site (OPS)is getting ahome indoors next month, in addition to new provincial funding.

"When we said we wouldn't abandon the people of Moss Park, we meant it," organizer Zoe DoddsaidFriday.

"We have supervised thousands of injections and reversed 212 overdoses and who knows how many more we've prevented. We've probably had upwards of 30,000 visits."

The sitebegan in August of last year as an unsanctioned, volunteer-runtentafter a spike in overdose deaths last summer. Community advocates and volunteersestablished themakeshift site in defiance of the law, risking arrest.

"When we first went into the park with the tents, we didn'tknow what to expect,"Doddsaid.

"We didn'teven think that we would be allowed to be in the park and we negotiated that day and stayed. I think most of us thought it would be a weekend, but we didn'tthink ... it would continue for nine months."

As winter set in, the volunteers continued their work and the site was givena heated tent by the provincial government and then a 40-foot trailer by the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario.

The additional provincial funding will allow the organizationto hire several staff members, but will have to re-applyevery six months for the moneyto continue.

"It feels good that we will be able to continue with [our] work without the fear of whether we're going to close down or whether we can staff it,"Doddsaid.

TheOPSwill continue to operate in the park before it moves to a nearby building.

The work of Dodd and other advocates hasled the province to set up anapplication process foroverdose prevention sites, which allowshealth care or community-based organizations to set up similar operations.

The federal government has also establisheda legal framework in which overdose prevention sites can operate, providing exemptions to allow for illegal drugs to be used on-site.

While Doddsays these are steps forward, she also warns that more action and resourcesareneeded to tackle the city'sopioidcrisis including greater funding and year-long exemptions for overdose prevention sites,changes to the legal framework around drug use,and more up-to-date and readily available data on the number of overdoses and deaths.

"At this point, we sit at lots of tables where we hear it's a journey," Dodd said."It's not a journey,it's a public health emergency that can have an end and we're all committed to finding that end."

With the provincial election around the corner,Doddalso notes the future of prevention sites like hers may be determined by its results.

Ontario's Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford has already come out "dead against" supervised injection sites and saysthe focus should be onrehabilitation of addicts instead.