Weekend service resumes at Yukon’s only supervised consumption site

Weekend service has resumed at Whitehorse’s only supervised consumption site after a months-long closure caused by staffing shortages.

Blood Ties Four Directions Centre, which operates the facility, says new funding from the Council of Yukon First Nations (CYFN) will allow the site to remain open seven days a week through March 2026.

Blood Ties paused weekend operations in May after one-third of its staff resigned following a police incident. Executive Director Jill Aalhus says the police incident exacerbated existing issues of burn out and wages that weren’t competitive with the labour market. The loss of staff left the organization without enough capacity to safely operate the site on weekends.

With winter now setting in, Aalhus says the return to full service is critical.

“It’s such an important place to provide people with safety and security,” she said.

Blood Ties said weekend service is essential because it helps people integrate the site into their daily routines. Aalhus noted that when the organization first expanded from a five-day-a-week model to a seven-day one, visits to the site tripled. Since the weekend closure in May, she said the opposite happened.

“We did see a decrease in access to the site since weekends were closed,” she said.

According to Blood Ties’ press release, the supervised consumption site has reversed more than 400 overdoses, supported more than 58,000 individual visits and served over 1,060 individuals since opening in 2021.

The new funding from CYFN will support weekend staffing until the end of the current fiscal year. Aalhus said aligning the partnership with the fiscal calendar creates space for the recently elected territorial government to review the program.

“Our hope is that it’ll give the new government time to get briefed and into their roles,” she said, “and hopefully we can have a conversation about the program and its future.”

CYFN Grand Chief Math’ieya Alatini said supporting Blood Ties aligns with directives from First Nations leadership. At CYFN’s General Assembly this summer, leaders passed a resolution calling on First Nation governments, NGOs and all levels of government to work collaboratively on the territory’s substance-use health emergency.

“We know that there’s decisive action that needs to be taken in order to save lives, because every life matters,” she said. “By this type of collaborative action, it shows that we’re not waiting for the system to catch up.”

Both organizations say long-term, multi-year funding is needed to ensure stable staffing and reliable service at the site. Aalhus says increasing wages would improve recruitment and retention — especially given Yukon’s high cost of living.

“The best case scenario would be if this site is invested in long term, and that our staff are paid appropriately for their skill level,” she said.