Safeworks supervised drug site closes Tuesday; harm reduction services continue
Calgary's only supervised consumption site ends June 30, but the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre will expand treatment, support, and referral services alongside a new recovery response team.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
After years of threats of closure, Calgary's only supervised drug consumption site will end operations Tuesday, June 30. Safeworks, housed at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in the Beltline, has served the city's drug-using population for nearly a decade.
The site's treatment, support, and referral services will carry on in the same space after the closure, and access to some of those services will be expanded, Recovery Alberta confirmed. A new round-the-clock recovery response team will also launch alongside the existing services.
The Alberta government announced in March it would close the Chumir site this month, five years after first revealing the plan. The shuttering will come as a relief for some in the surrounding Beltline community, but others stand by the effectiveness of harm reduction programs. Jay, a user who visited the site multiple times before going clean for three years and recently relapsed, said the closure is dangerous and will only spread open drug use more publicly. "It's terrible — there's going to be more (use) on the streets," he said.
Safeworks saw approximately 125 daily visitors according to 2025 data, with more than 45,500 visits that year. The site provided monitored drug consumption in a controlled environment, with staff checking medical data and health before clients could inject drugs purchased on the black market. After an observation period of about 30 minutes to ensure no overdose, clients could leave.
Last year, Safeworks attended to 701 adverse events. Jay said the site's caring staff and the safety it provided—crucial given impurities in the street drug supply—will be lost with its closure.
