Health Canada’s investment for Sunshine House will end in October, prompting the Resource and Visitor Centre operating the Overdose Prevention RV to set a fundraising goal of $275,000 to keep it running through the end of March.
On Tuesday, Sunshine House said it had received more than $375,000 in funding for the unit, including $250,000 from the Winnipeg Foundation, about $72,728 from an amendment to its existing agreement with Health Canada, as well as about $55,000 in grassroots funding.
It has monitored approximately 8,000 drug cases and conducted 391 drug tests since opening, according to a news release issued Tuesday. The new cash will allow the CellularArray, which operated five days a week with about four employees, to remain open in downtown Winnipeg until the end of March.
“It also means that we can add a couple evenings to the schedule, which is really exciting,” Davey Cole, co-ordinator of the mobile site program, told host Faith Fundal during a Tuesday interview with CBC Radio’s Up to Speed.
“It’s darker in the winter. We’re fighting a lot more elements and so on to stay connected and keep other people safe. “
LISTEN | Overdose prevention RV to roll through winter:
The Sunshine House Harm Relief Caravan obtained a federal exemption in October 2022 from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to operate in the downtown Winnipeg, West End, North End and Point Douglas communities.
Since then, there have been about 28,000 visits to the RV and lately it receives about 200 visits a day, according to Cole.
The force driving the need for the site is the level of drug toxicity in Winnipeg, they say.
“It’s quite concerning,” Cole said. “Folks are buying what they think might be meth, but then it has opioids in it, and that can cause a really complex overdose situation.”
Provincial data showed 358 overdose deaths in Manitoba in 2021, the most recent full year for which data is available. That year there were 42 more suspected overdose deaths.
According to the data, overdose deaths and 15 suspected overdose deaths were recorded in the first three months of 2022.
Manitoba’s new NDP government confirmed in October that it wants to establish a supervised consumption site in downtown Winnipeg, tasking addictions minister Bernadette Smith to work with other cabinet ministers and deliver on what it called a key priority.
Jamil Mahmood, executive director of Winnipeg’s Main Street Project, said in the Tuesday release that his organization is relieved Sunshine House’s RV will continue to provide harm reduction services during an “ongoing drug toxicity crisis” in the city.
Sunshine House will continue to seek more grants and major investments to continue operating in the future, Cole said. The Sunshine House RV will also offer immediate HIV testing and referrals to other mandatory services, in addition to housing and addiction treatment.
“We just think that everyone deserves the chance to succeed and be loved,” Cole said, “and, at the end of the day, that’s what we’re doing here, making sure other people don’t die. “
Journalist
Özten Shebahkeget is Anishinaabe/Turkish Cypriot and a member of the Northwest Angle 33 First Nation who grew up in the North End of Winnipeg. She joined CBC Manitoba in 2021 from the inaugural Pathways program. She also recently graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree. in the Writing program at the University of Saskatchewan.
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