Breakaway Addiction Services runs a methadone clinic at 41 Niagara. The clinic is in a nondescript, cream-painted brick building; the only reason you know it’s there is because I just told you.
But you may have heard that the clinic is about to be torn down to make way for condos, and it will move into my neighbourhood in a day or two.
Parkdale already has its fair share of social services, rooming houses, soup kitchens and so on; some of my neighbours are concerned about the clinic.
So I dropped by Breakaway the other day to meet the new neighbours. There was a fish tank near the entrance. Do the fish have names? The woman at reception said she wasn’t sure if they were boys or girls.
“Today, they’re girls.”
Hello, girls.
Bob Martel, the program director, showed me around. “There’s the kitchen, and the library; this is the drop-in. We have a bank of computers where people can do resumés and send email.” Everything else is in boxes, packed for the move.
He introduced me to Lori Naylor, who was on staff when the clinic moved to Niagara St. some 11 years ago. She remembers no problems then, nor any since. “We’re surrounded here by gazillion-dollar condos and townhouses. One of our staff lives in one of the townhouses; her neighbours didn’t even know the clinic was here. We go out and clean up the park every year.”
So, good neighbours.
Bob said, “People are concerned in Parkdale that property values will decrease.” If so, it would be the first time in my dozen years in the neighbourhood that property values did anything but rise. “They’re also worried about who we serve.”
Who does Breakaway serve?
Lori said, “Up to 80 per cent of our clients have been sexually abused; addiction is one of the outcomes of untreated child abuse.” Is it true that those to whom evil is done will do evil in return?
Bob said, “It’s not the case that those who have been abused will abuse others; they abuse themselves.
“We have the people who were subject to repetitive neglect as children, who were not fed or clothed, who were ignored, who went from foster homes to jail.”
The clinic does not treat crazed predators, dazed moral degenerates, or the unwilling; it treats people who want to get well.
Bob said, “A lot of our clients are employed; they don’t want their employers to know they take methadone; there’s discrimination.”
Why?
“It’s one thing to be in rehab and to accept God as your personal saviour.” That’s a reference to 12-step programs based on abstinence. “It’s another thing if you are being treated with medication.”
And then Bob got severe: act badly, and you are kicked out of the program; act badly near the building, and you are chased away.
The clinic has 110 clients; it operates from 9 to 5 weekdays; it provides counselling and drug testing; it will soon absorb some family counselling and outreach services from its location in Etobicoke.
And so to Parkdale for a community meeting, just around the corner from 21 Strickland Ave., the new location of the clinic.
The meeting, in a neighbour’s garage: at the back of the garage, a hockey net; a basketball hoop in the corner; an ice cream struck passing by as the meeting began. My neighbours, lips pursed, arms folded, brows furrowed, sat on plastic chairs.
They were not told the clinic was moving in. They feel they should have been involved or informed.
They are not wrong.
They formed a quick and angry group to oppose the clinic; not what it does, they say, but where. One of the members is Rob Ford’s man in Parkdale; the group has also met with Ford’s press secretary.
Make of that what you will.
The meeting was polite, restrained and tense. I heard someone say, “You can’t discriminate between a methadone clinic or a dentist’s office.” I heard someone else reply, “Or an abortion clinic.”
Oh, my poor dear Parkdale.
A nice retired lady said the city should be encouraging homeowners like her; another nice lady said she lived near a methadone clinic in another neighbourhood and the value of her property increased $100,000 in the past five years.
Someone said if this were a treatment centre for cancer patients, we wouldn’t be having the meeting.
And so on.
The building on Strickland is across from some nice houses, but it is zoned for use as a clinic; and so my neighbours are flummoxed. Nevertheless, they are questioning the use of provincial money to make the building ready, and will seize on procedural tactics to try and stop the move.
Too late.
A nice woman said, “We’re going to be great neighbours. We have lots of ideas of how we can work together. But we’re not happy about the process.”
Memo to the director of the clinic: You should have done some outreach. No, you didn’t have to. Yes, you should have.
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