State buys building expected to house safe-injecting room

Lord mayor Sally Capp has raised concerns about a prominent Flinders Street building near the tourist Degraves Street strip being used as a safe-injecting room after the state government confirmed it had bought the site.

The Age revealed on May 17 that the former Yooralla building at 244-248 Flinders Street, between Elizabeth and Swanston streets, was the government’s preferred location for the injecting room because it is located in a drug injecting and overdose hotspot.

The state government confirmed on Monday night that it had bought the building, saying it was “a valuable location for a range of potential services, including health services”, although it said no decision had been made regarding the final location for the injecting room.

Cr Capp said she shared many of the concerns of traders and residents about the Yooralla site.

“Last year I opposed a proposal to put a medically supervised injecting centre near Queen Victoria Market because it was too close to such an iconic tourist destination, its proximity to vulnerable residents and the impact on local traders,” Cr Capp said.

“There are many of the same issues with 244 Flinders Street and I share many of the concerns of local residents and traders.”

Cr Capp said the council accepted that medically supervised injecting services save lives “but any facility in the City of Melbourne can’t cost livelihoods”.

The former Yooralla building.

The former Yooralla building was put up for sale late last year and had been predicted to fetch as much as $45 million.

A government spokesperson confirmed on Monday night the state government had bought it but said: “No decision has been made regarding the final location for the medically supervised injecting room and multiple sites remain under active consideration by government.

“A final decision will be made in coming weeks.”

The prominent Flinders Street location has attracted fierce opposition from some quarters, including the Police Association and the lobby group Small Business Australia.

The government says that with about one person a month dying from a heroin overdose in the City of Melbourne there is a growing need for a supervised injecting facility in the central city.

It says Ambulance Victoria data shows opioid-related ambulance attendances in the City of Melbourne were up 70 per cent in the five years to 2020 and doubled in the CBD over the same period.

An independent review panel recommended last year that a second injecting room be established in the City of Melbourne, where there were 51 heroin-related deaths between January 2015 and September 2019, to take the pressure off the existing injecting room in Richmond.

Melbourne City Council voted last week in favour of the supervised injecting room, following a robust debate and the narrow defeat of a motion opposing setting up one anywhere in the city. Neither motion mentioned a location.

“I acknowledge that [it] will be controversial, but the evidence shows that services such as these save lives and they do reduce the number of people who are shooting up in our city streets,” Cr Capp said at the time.

But Cr Capp said a CBD service needed to be operated in the same way as Sydney’s safe-injecting room in Kings Cross, which is smaller and more discreet than the Richmond facility.

The Police Association said it was strongly opposed to the proposed second safe-injecting room location in the Melbourne CBD, “particularly as the ingrained issues identified at the current location in Richmond have not yet been addressed”.

“A second medically supervised injecting room in the CBD would significantly impact police resourcing in one of the most challenging police service areas,” the association said in a submission to the council.

Small Business Australia executive director Bill Lang said local businesses would be irrevocably damaged as those visiting the CBD elected to avoid the area because of social issues the facility would bring with it.

”We have already seen such damage at the ‘safe-injecting room’ operating in Richmond, with residents and local traders forced to contend with drug dealing; fights; abuse; prostitution; users urinating, vomiting and defecating in the street; unconscious bodies; and in extreme cases those who have died in the streets from overdoses,” Mr Lang said in a submission.

“The ‘safe-injecting room’ will see local businesses close, cost jobs within the CBD, devalue properties and rents, and to have that occur at the expense of those who are plying a legal trade, to protect those who are involved in breaking the law, is not a policy that should be accepted by council.”

The state Health Department originally identified the cohealth community centre in Victoria Street, near the Queen Victoria Market, as its preferred site, sparking concerns from residents, market stallholders and Melbourne City Council.

Former police chief commissioner Ken Lay was appointed to undertake an independent consultation process on a second injecting room.

The Flinders Street site is understood to have been one of several identified by Mr Lay.

The former Yooralla building appeals to the government because there is space for allied services such as drug and alcohol counselling and homelessness and mental health services, which would also be available to the broader community.

Plans for a new injecting site follow a review chaired by Professor Margaret Hamilton last year that found the injecting room in Richmond had safely managed 3200 overdoses and saved at least 21 lives since it opened.

The government extended the trial for another three years.

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