By Alexandra Keeler

Business owners and residents weigh in on the controversial closure of Kensington Market’s overdose prevention site

Toronto’s Kensington Market is a bohemian community knit together by an eclectic symphony of cultures, sounds and flavours.

However, debate has been raging in the community over the potential closure of a local overdose consumption site, which some see as a life-saving resource and others consider a burden on the community.

Grey Coyote, who owns Paradise Bound record shop, believes that the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site is fuelling theft and property damage. He plans on shutting his store, which is adjacent to the site, after 25 years of operation.

Other nearby business owners have decided to stay. But they, too, are calling for change.

“The merchants in the market are the ones taking the brunt of this … especially the ones closest to [the overdose prevention site],” said David Beaver, co-owner of Wanda’s Pie in the Sky, a nearby bakery.

“There’s a larger issue at hand here,” Beaver said. “We have to help these people out, but perhaps [the status quo] is not the way to go about it.”

In an effort to change the status quo, Ontario recently passed a law prohibiting overdose prevention sites from operating within 200 metres of schools or daycares. The law could force the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site to close, although it is challenging the decision.

Coyote says he plans on leaving the neighbourhood regardless. The high concentration of social programs in the area will make continued theft, property damage and defacement likely, he says.

“They’re all still going to be there,” he said.

Court challenge

Ontario’s decision to close supervised consumption sites near schools and daycares affects 10 sites across the province.

The province plans to transition all nine provincially funded overdose prevention sites into Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs. These hubs will offer drug users a range of primary care and housing solutions, but not supervised consumption, needle exchanges or the “safe supply” of prescription drugs.

The tenth site, Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site, is not eligible to become a HART Hub because it is not provincially funded.

In response, The Neighbourhood Group, the social agency that runs the Kensington site, has filed a lawsuit against the province. It claims the closure order violates the Charter rights of the site’s clients by increasing their risk of death and disease.

“There will be a return of [overdose] deaths that would be preventable,” said Bill Sinclair, CEO of The Neighbourhood Group.

“Our neighbours include people who use these sites and … they are very frightened. They want to know what’s going to happen to them if we close.”

In response to the lawsuit, the province has initiated an investigation on the site’s impact on the community. It has enlisted two ex-police officers to canvas the market, question locals and gather information about the site in preparation for the legal challenge.

“Ontario is collecting evidence from communities affected by supervised consumption sites,” said Keesha Seaton, a media spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General.

“Ontario’s responding evidence in the court challenge will be served on January 24.”

Bad for business

The Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site sits at the northern entrance of Spadina Avenue, a key thoroughfare into the heart of Kensington Market. It is located within St. Stephen’s Community House, a former community centre.

The site was added to the community centre in 2018 in response to a surge of overdoses in the area. It is funded through federal grants and community donations.

Within the site’s 200-metre radius are Westside Montessori School, Kensington Kids Early Learning Centre and Bellevue Child Care Centre. Bellevue is operated by The Neighbourhood Group, the same organization that operates the overdose prevention site.

The site serves an average of 154 clients per month. It reversed 50 overdoses in 2024, preventing fatalities.

But while the site has saved lives, shop owners claim it is killing business.

“[Kensington] is a very accepting market and very understanding, but [the overdose prevention site is] just not conducive to business right now,” said Mike Shepherd, owner of Trinity Common beer hall — located across the street from the site — and chair of the Kensington Market Business Improvement Area.

Shepherd says it has become more common to find broken glass, needles and condoms outside his bar in recent years. He has also had to deal with stolen propane heaters and vandalism, including a wine bottle thrown at his car.

Shepherd attributes some of these challenges to a growing homeless population and increased drug use in the neighborhood. He says these issues became particularly acute after Covid hit and the province cut funding for community programs once offered by St. Stephen’s.

Inside his bar, he has handled multiple overdoses, administering naloxone and calling ambulances, and has had to physically remove disruptive patrons.

“I don’t have problems throwing people out of my establishment when they’re … getting violent or causing problems, but my staff shouldn’t have to deal with that,” he said.

“I’m literally watching somebody smoke something from a glass pipe right now,” he said, staring across the street from his bar window as he spoke to Canadian Affairs.

Still, he is empathetic.

“A lot of people who are drug addicted are self-diagnosing for mental traumas,” said Shepherd. “Sometimes, when they go down those deep roads, they go off the tracks.”

Other business owners in the area share similar concerns.

Bobina Attlee, the owner of Otto’s Berlin Döner, has struggled to deal with discarded syringes, stolen bins and sanitation concerns like urine and feces.

These issues prevented her from joining the CaféTO program, which allows restaurants and bars to expand their outdoor dining space during the summer months.

Sid Dichter, owner of Supermarket Restaurant and Bar, has dealt with loitering, break-ins and drug paraphernalia being left behind on his patio day after day.

Some business owners, like Coyote, expressed harsher criticisms.

“Weak politicians and law enforcement have been infiltrated by the retarded, woke mafia,” Coyote said, referring to what he sees as overly lenient harm reduction policies and social programs in “liberal” cities.

Toronto Police Service data show increases in auto and bike thefts and break-and-enters in Kensington Market from 2014 to 2023. Auto thefts rose from 23 in 2014 to 50 in 2023, bike thefts from 92 to 137, and break-and-enters from 103 to 145.

Kensington Market’s city councillor, Dianne Saxe, said she has received numerous complaints from constituents about disorder in the area.

In an email to Canadian Affairs, she cited complaints about “feces, drug trafficking, harassment, shoplifting, theft from yards and porches, trash, masturbation in front of children, and shouting at parents and teachers.”

However, Saxe noted it is difficult to determine what portion of these problems are linked to the overdose prevention site, as opposed to factors like nearby homeless encampments.

Encampments emerged at the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields on Bellevue Avenue in the spring of 2022 and were cleared in November 2023.

‘Fair share’

Wanda’s Pie in the Sky is located just a few doors down from the Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site. Beaver, the store’s co-owner, says Wanda’s has always provided food and coffee to clients of the site.

However, issues escalated during the pandemic. Beaver had to deal with incidents like drug use in the restaurant’s restrooms, theft, vandalism and violent outbreaks.

“We try to deal with it on a very compassionate level, but there’s only so much we can do,” said Beaver.

Despite the messes left on his patio, Dichter, who owns the Supermarket Restaurant and Bar, has also developed relationships with site clients.

“I’ve talked to a lot of them, and most of them are very good human beings,” he said. “For the most part, they just have bad luck in life.”

Reverend Canon Maggie Helwig has been a priest at Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields since 2013. She described the overdose prevention site as a safe, well-run space where many people have connected to recovery resources.

“It’s clear to me that the overdose prevention site has been a positive influence in the neighbourhood,” she told Canadian Affairs in an email.

“We need more access to harm reduction, not less, and … closing the site will lead to more public drug use, more deaths from toxic drugs, and fewer people connecting to recovery resources.”

Sinclair, CEO of The Neighbourhood Group, described Kensington Market as “an accepting place for people who are sometimes different or excluded from society … it’s been a place where people have practised tolerance.”

“But sometimes it does feel that some neighbourhoods are doing more than their fair share,” he added.

Shepherd, of Trinity Common beer hall, counted five different social service agencies within a two-block radius of the market. These range from food banks and homeless shelters to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

“When you have that kind of social services infrastructure in one area, it’s going to draw the people that need it to this area and overburden the neighbourhood,” said Shepherd.

Systemic issues

Some sources pointed to potential root causes of the growing tensions in Kensington Market.

“We mostly blame the provincial government,” said Beaver, referencing funding cuts by the Ford government that began in 2019.

“They cut the funding to the city, and the city can only do so much with whatever budget they have.”

Provincial funding reductions slashed millions from Toronto Public Health’s budget, straining harm reduction, infectious disease control and community health programs.

“The [overdose prevention site] closure is a provincial decision,” said Councillor Saxe. “I was not consulted [and] I am not aware of any evidence that supports Ford’s decision.

A Toronto Public Health report tabled Jan. 20 warns that closing overdose prevention sites could increase fatal overdoses and strain emergency responders.

The report, prepared by the city’s acting Medical Officer of Health Na-Koshie Lamptey, urges the province to reconsider its decision to exclude safe consumption services from the HART Hubs.

The province’s decision to close sites located near schools and daycares came after a mother of two was fatally shot in a gunfight outside a safe consumption site in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood.

Ontario has also cited crime and public safety concerns as reasons for prohibiting supervised consumption services near centres with children. Police chiefs and sergeants in the Ontario cities of London and Ottawa have additionally raised concerns about prescription drugs dispensed through safer supply programs being diverted to the black market.

For some Kensington Market business owners, the answer is to move overdose prevention sites elsewhere.

“Put our safe injection sites as a wing or an area of the hospital,” said Shepherd, referring to Toronto Western Hospital, on the east side of the Kensington Market neighbourhood.

But another local resident, Andy Stevenson, argues for leaving things as they are. “Leave it alone. Just leave it alone,” said Stevenson, whose home is a five-minute walk from the site. “It’s going to become chaotic if they close it down.”

Stevenson says she has felt a deep connection to the market since her teenage years. She spends her leisure time there and continues to do all her shopping in the area.

“When you choose to live around here, it’s a reality that there are drug addicts, homeless people and street people — It’s a fact of life,” she said.

“So you can’t [complain] about it … move to suburbia.”

This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.

 

 

The Audit has a growing library of posts addressing the housing crisis. I’m particularly proud of my Solving Canada’s Housing Crisis because of how it presents a broad range of practical approaches that have been proposed and attempted across many countries and economies. But the truth is that the affordability end of the problem could be easily and quickly solved right here at home without the need for clever and expensive innovation.

As you’ll soon see, local and provincial governments – if they were so inspired – could drop the purchase price on new homes by 20 percent. Before breakfast.

It’s all about taxes and fees. This post will focus mostly on taxes and fees as they apply to new construction of relatively expensive detached homes. But the basic ideas will apply to all homes – and will also impact rentals.

Here are some estimated numbers to chew on. Scenarios based on varying permutations and combinations will produce different results, but I think this example will be a good illustration.

Let’s say that a developer purchases a single residential plot in Toronto for $1.4 million. In mature midtown neighborhoods, that figure is hardly uncommon. The plan is to build an attractive single family home and then sell it on the retail market.

Here are some estimates of the costs our developer will currently face:

• Construction costs on a 2,000 sq. ft. home (@ $350/sq. ft.): $700,000
• Land transfer taxes on the initial land purchase: $35,000
• Development fees: $100,000
• Permits and zoning/site approvals: $40,000

Total direct development costs would therefore come to $875,000. Of course, that’s besides the $1.4 million purchase price for the land which would bring our new running total to $2,275,000.

We’ll also need to account for the costs of regulatory delays. Waiting for permits, approvals, and environmental assessments can easily add a full year to the project. Since nothing can begin until the developer has legal title to the property, he’ll likely be paying interest for a mortgage representing 80 percent of the purchase price (i.e., $1,120,000). Even assuming a reasonable rate, that’ll add another $60,000 in carrying charges. Which will bring us to $2,335,000.

And don’t forget lawyers and consultants. They also have families to feed! Professional guidance for navigating through the permit and assessment system can easily cost a developer another $25,000.

That’s not an exhaustive list, by the way. To keep things simple, I left out Toronto’s Parkland Dedication Fee which, for residential developments, can range from 5 to 20 percent of the land value. And the Education Development Charges imposed by school boards was also ignored.

So assuming everything goes smoothly – something that’s far from given – that’ll give us a total development cost of $2,360,000. To ensure compensation for the time, work, investments, and considerable risks involved, our developer is unlikely to want to sell the home for less than $2,700,000.

But various governments are still holding their hands out. When the buyers sign an agreement of purchase, they’ll be on the hook for land transfer taxes and – since it’s a new house – HST. Ontario and Toronto will want about four percent ($108,000) for the transfer (even though they both just cashed in on the very same transfer tax for the very same land at the start of the process). And, even taking into account both the federal and Ontario rebates, getting the keys to the front door will require handing over another $327,000 for HST.

Here’s how development fee schedules currently look in Toronto:

And here’s a breakdown of the land transfer taxes assessed against anyone buying land:

In our hypothetical case, those fees would give us a total, all-in purchase price of $3,135,000. How much of that is due to government involvement (including associated legal and interest fees)? Around $695,000.

That’s $695,000 our buyers will pay – over and above the actual costs of land and construction. Or, in other words, a 22 percent markup.

Let’s put this a different way. If the cost of the median home in Canada dropped by 22 percent, then around 1.5 million extra Canadian households could enter the market. Congratulations, you’ve solved the housing affordability crisis. (Although supply problems will still need some serious work.)

Now it’s probably not realistic to expect politicians in places like the Ontario Legislature and Toronto City Council to give up that kind of income. But just lowering their intake by 50 or even 25 percent – and reducing the costs and pain points of acquiring permits – could make a serious difference. Not only would it lower home sale prices, but it would lower the barriers to entry for new home construction.

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Just what were all those taxes worth to governments? Let’s begin with the City of Toronto. Their 2023 Financial Report tells us that land transfer taxes generated $944 million, permits and zoning applications delivered $137 million, and development fees accounted for $1.45 billion. Total city revenues in 2023 were $16.325 billion.

We’re told that all that money was spent on:

• Roads and transit systems
• Water and wastewater systems
• Fire and emergency services
• Parks and recreation facilities
• Libraries

Well, we do need those things right? We can’t expect the city to just eliminate fire and emergency services.

Wait. Hang on. I seem to recall being told that revenue from my property tax bill covered those services. Yes! My property tax did fund those things. Not 100 percent of those things, but a lot.

Specifically, Toronto property tax revenues cover 65 percent of the municipal costs for roads and transit systems, 85 percent of fire and emergency services, 75 percent of parks and recreation facilities, and 95 percent of library costs (even though very few people use public libraries any more).

Granted, property tax revenue covered only five percent of water and wastewater systems, but that’s because another 40 percent came from user fees (i.e., utility bills).

So revenues from land transfer taxes, developer fees, and permitting aren’t an insignificant portion of City income, but they’re hardly the linchpin propping the whole thing up either. City Council could respond to losing that income by increasing property taxes. Or – and I’m just throwing around random ideas here – they could reduce their spending.

Now what about the province? I couldn’t get a good sense of how much of their HST revenue comes specifically from new home sales, but Ontario’s 2023–24 consolidated financial statements tell us that provincial land transfer taxes brought in $3.538 billion. That would be around 1.7% of total government revenues. Again, a bit more than a rounding error.

Politics is about finding balances through trade offs. Sure, maintaining program spending while minimizing deficits is an ongoing and real challenge for governments. On the other hand, they all say they’re concerned about the housing crisis. Foregoing just one to five percent of revenues should, given the political payoffs and bragging rights that could follow, probably be an easy pill to swallow.

A few weeks ago I reached out to the City of Toronto Housing Secretariat and the Province of Ontario’s Municipal Affairs and Housing for their thoughts. I received no response.