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Community's safe site founder focuses on harm reduction for those battling addiction (6 photos)

Reluctance from local landlords led Merissa Dinner to set up a safe space from her own van

Make no mistake.

Merissa Dinner wants to see those addicted to alcohol and drugs get sober and healthy.

But for those who aren’t ready to take that step to get help and get sober, the Sault Ste. Marie woman, an all-round compassionate person, wants to make sure drug users have a safe place to use drugs, monitored and cared for by people in recovery who have themselves been chained by addictions in the past (including Dinner herself).

Dinner is the founder of Safe Space, which officially launched in January.

Dinner, accompanied by several like-minded volunteers, operates Safe Space at three locations in the downtown core.

Safe Space is a registered not-for-profit, currently running with the help of donations from the community.

Safe Space sets up at the 100 block of Cathcart Street from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays, the corner of Gore Street and Albert Street from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and James Street (in front of the Sault Ste. Marie Soup Kitchen Community Centre) from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Safe Space operates in conjunction with Hope For Change, established in 2020.

“I (along with Safe Space volunteers) do the harm reduction,” Dinner told SooToday over the weekend, ensuring a safe environment for those using drugs (often using substances on site at Safe Space locations), she and her crew on hand with harm reduction supplies such as naloxone, first aid, providing direction to users as to where withdrawal programs and services are available locally, and, in a non-clinical way, provide words of support and compassion for users.

Hope For Change, on site with Safe Space, provides hot food, coffee, gift bags and other basic items drug users may need (even shoes), all out of its own pocket.

“We do our best with very little,” Dinner said.

Reluctance from various local landlords to provide a bricks and mortar site for Safe Space led Dinner to use her own van, packed with supplies, to travel to outdoor sites, using her own tent, to help those suffering from addictions.

“I’m working with Hope For Change because no other group I’ve reached out to would let me come and work with them. No business would let me set up a ‘using tent’ beside them,” Dinner said. 

“Recently we’ve lost a lot of people in recovery."

“I lost a friend who overdosed at another friend’s house. He found her and it was traumatic. It rocks our community. Recently we lost a woman who has two little boys and the father is now raising those little boys without a mother. She died just before Christmas. Before that we lost a man who had been working very hard to stay sober...and he overdosed. Another got into treatment, had some visits with his family and then overdosed.”

“I don’t want to see my friends die any more.”

“If we save one person a day, that’s all that counts. We’ve seen that. We were able to be at the scenes of overdoses and stop the trauma overdoses cause. We just do our best and help where we can,” Dinner said.

“You do what you can where you can!” Dinner exclaimed with a smile behind her COVID-19 protection mask.

Gift bags distributed to clients at the Safe Space and Hope For Change sites over the weekend included new toques, new socks, coffee packets and small snacks.

Donations of food and snacks have come from Harvest Algoma and Hope For Change, but most of all, from friends, Dinner said. 

“We’ve had multiple people who have come together and made a difference,” said Dinner of her Safe Space and Hope For Change colleagues.

“Our community has come together and said ‘we have to do some harm reduction.’ This brings us all together. The whole idea of Safe Space and Hope For Change is to bring harm reduction to the people who need it. The people who come here are hungry, they have needs, and we’ve developed a sense of community where they feel comfortable asking for what they need with no sense of judgment on them.”

“If you need harm reduction we have it (along with food and a hot drink). Most of all, there are a lot of people who just need to talk, to stay for a couple of hours,” Dinner said.

“The coolest thing is that people come here and want to know how we got into recovery and how we did it,” said Dinner, who has been in recovery from alcohol and drugs for the last three years, having a first hand personal knowledge of where to go for recovery programs and services, now sharing that knowledge with others.

Dinner is currently studying in Sault College’s Social Service Worker - Indigenous Specialization program, as well as taking courses remotely in The University of British Columbia (UBC) Addictions and Mental Health Studies program.

“I’ve learned how to help others,” she said.

Dinner estimated she and her colleagues help, through outreach, approximately 250 people in the community and approximately 50 people on a weekly basis at the Safe Space and Hope For Change sites.

The compassion doesn’t end at the Safe Space sites.

Last week, the Safe Space crew boarded up windows for needy, addicted people/tenants in an apartment in the downtown core. 

“Nobody cared enough about them to do it for them. Sometimes these people don’t have a shower curtain, water or shoes,” Dinner said.

“You never know what you‘re going to see. One of our outreach workers picks up needles every day. Other people like to donate their food, others are behind the scenes and donating gifts.”

“Last weekend we had a donation of pictures so that people can decorate their homes,” Dinner said.

“The police (and the City of Sault Ste. Marie) have been very helpful. They (police) drive around and make sure we’re okay.”

“The biggest thing is that our city needs to remember we are ‘recovery strong.’ If you get to have one friend in recovery, if you have one sober buddy, if you have one person that loves you until you can love yourself, you’ll make it through another day. We’ve seen how a person comes here wanting to kill himself but after he gets a little bit of compassion, he made it through that day.”

“If you’re an addict, in my opinion you probably don’t have a good backstory. Somebody has probably stepped on their toes and that makes it really hard for some people to come out and say that they're an addict,” Dinner said.

She advises those who want to get sober to remember it is a process of ‘progress, not perfection,’ recalling her own recovery.

She emphasizes the decision to get clean must come from the user himself/herself.

“I walk with my head high and say ‘I used to be an addict and I’m not anymore.’ This (work with Safe Space) is what keeps me sober,” Dinner said. 

Dinner and her partners currently have an electronic petition in the works, forwarded to the federal government, to allow, support and fund a safe injection site and an effective detox centre in Sault Ste. Marie, allowing clients to be free from fear of being charged for using small amounts of drugs at such a site.

Carol Hughes, Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing MP, has shown her support for the petition.

The petition, which can be found online is open until shortly after 1 p.m. May 25, 2021.

Interestingly, Dinner told us she doesn’t support the campaign, by Sault Area Hospital (SAH) and other local healthcare entities, for a new Level III Withdrawal Management Services facility to be established in the Sault.

“No. I really don’t think what the hospital is planning is a good idea. I don’t support detox going through the hospital. I want our detox to go through Safe Space so that we run it with the recovering volunteers we have, so that people will come in and feel loved. If they go to the hospital, they don’t feel loved,” she stated. 

Safe Space can be contacted through its Facebook page.

Hope For Change can also be contacted through Facebook.


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Darren Taylor

About the Author: Darren Taylor

Darren Taylor is a news reporter and photographer in Sault Ste Marie. He regularly covers community events, political announcements and numerous board meetings. With a background in broadcast journalism, Darren has worked in the media since 1996.
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