A community health centre in east Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhod held a series of town halls this past week roughly six months after an innocent bystander was fatally shot just across the street.
On Jan. 17, 20 and 22, members of the public were invited to stop by the South Riverdale Community Health Centre (SRCHC), at 955 Queen St. E., to learn more about the programs and services offered there as well as the additional safety measures the centre has implemented since the tragedy that claimed the life of 44-year-old Karolina Huebner-Makurat.
On July 7, the mother of two from Leslieville was walking on Queen Street East near Carlaw Avenue when she was hit by a stray bullet after gunshots rang out during an altercation between three males just outside SRCHC's supervised consumption site. The woman was rushed to a nearby trauma centre, but was pronounced dead.
Huebner-Makurat’s death has deeply impacted the community resulting in the local health centre facing intense scrutiny with some placing blame on it for what happened and demanding more accountability. Others, meanwhile, have since come forward to show their support for the harm reduction work being done there and want to see these kinds of services continue to be offered at that location.
In the fall, the province announced that it would be appointing a supervisor to do a comprehensive, third-party review of SRCHC’s Consumption and Treatment Services with the goal of determining if any improvements are needed for the operation and safety of this site as well as if this kind of service is suitable within community health centres. The government said that the Ministry of Health is also in the process of doing a broader review of all 16 such sites in Ontario.
During an interview on Monday night with CP24, SRCHC’s CEO Jason Altenberg said with so many crises being experienced in our cities over the last few years, the housing crisis, the toxic drug supply crisis, the crisis of social isolation, not to mention the challenged posed by COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult to create an open space for the community to come in and learn about what they do and what they're all about.
He also said that the centre also wanted to open its doors to people from the area following Huebner-Makurat's shooting death, which he said has “strongly reverberated” throughout the community and continues to do so to this day.
“We wanted to really invite our neighbors in. We’ve heard a lot from people in the last year and we really wanted to show people what the health centre’s all about,” Altenberg said, adding the open houses were an opportunity for people to learn, to talk directly to the staff, and ask any questions they may have.
“Our harm reduction services are needed now more than ever. In the last couple of years we’ve reversed hundreds of overdoses and it’s not just an issue in this community, it’s an issue across our city and services like this that are integrated with primary care and social care are just needed more than ever.”
He also said that most people who attended the town halls were interested in learning more about the centre, adding there were some who also had questions about what changes have been implemented since last summer’s tragedy.
“We’ve had a really wonderful turnout and actually really positive engagement with our neighbours through this process,” he said.
Altenberg went on to say that some of the most notable changes people will see since the summer are the presence of security as well as a new fence that has been erected between the health centre and a neighbouring church.
“We hope that this creates conditions that would reduce the likelihood of crime and we will continue to kind of make improvements as the review of the services comes forward and other recommendation comes forward,” he said, adding a lot of collaboration with numerous City of Toronto divisions is required to ensure the success of the supervised consumption and harm reduction services they provide.
“A lot of things that drive this crisis are things that supervised consumption services can’t manage on their own. The solutions to these problems are whole-community solutions that require much more than any single service or organization to tackle and so we work in a very, very collaborative way with many parts of the health and social systems and with the city to achieve those health outcomes. But really, the underlying things that drive the need for these services are deep and entrenched and can’t be dealt with by a service like this on its own.”
Two men have been arrested and charged in connection with Huebner-Makurat’s death. A female employee at SRCHC has also been charged with accessory after the fact and obstructing justice. The charges have not been proven in court.
