October 6, 2025
Dear Party Leader,
The toxic drug crisis is a health emergency in the Yukon and across the country that has had devastating impacts on communities. Before our supervised consumption site opened, overdoses in alleys and parking lots were routine. Today, hundreds of lives have been saved through the continuum of services Blood Ties offers.
But our services are stretched beyond sustainability. We have had to close the doors of the Supervised Consumption Site on weekends due to ongoing challenges with recruitment and retention and despite repeated requests, we still do not have a funding solution from the government. As the Yukon’s only harm reduction organization, Blood Ties provides education, harm reduction services, supervised consumption, housing services, hot meals, outreach, and wellness supports, but we cannot backslide. Low-barrier harm reduction support is essential to saving lives.
We are asking every party to publicly state their commitments so Yukoners know where you stand. We will be sharing this letter with our supporters as well.
Our Questions
1. Supervised Consumption Site: Using the World Health Organization’s definition of overdoses, our team has reversed 147 overdoses with no losses. Using a more up-to-date definition of overdose that reflects the current supply, this number rises to more than 438 overdoses reversed. That’s 438 lives saved. A recent evaluation demonstrated that the site does more than respond to overdose; it improves health, safety, and well-being.
Will your party commit to providing the resources needed to operate the SCS seven days a week, 11 hours a day, with adequate staff and commit to keeping the service low-barrier and accessible?
2. Workforce: Harm reduction staff provide specialized, life-saving health care. They reverse overdoses, prevent the spread of infectious disease, and support people in high-stress environments. Yet, like many forms of care work, their expertise is often undervalued and underpaid - treated as a “soft skill” rather than the essential health care it is. This undervaluing contributes to low wages, high burnout, and chronic recruitment challenges. How will your party ensure harm reduction staff are fairly compensated and supported so their work is recognized as the essential health care it is?
3. Continuum of services: Blood Ties provides a full continuum of supports, including housing, food, drop-in supports, outreach, and wellness programs, that help Yukoners meet their basic needs and stabilize their lives. These services reduce harm, build pathways to recovery, and support community wellness. Yet, we regularly turn people away from our meal program when we run out of meals and these services could be scaled up to better meet community needs. What commitments will your party make to maintain and expand these supports?
4. Education: Blood Ties has provided health education in Yukon communities since 1993. This work reduces stigma, builds capacity, and shares life-saving knowledge, but receives no funding from the territorial government. We stretch short-term federal project funds that end soon, but demand from communities, including rural and First Nations communities, far exceeds our capacity and these project funds are short-term and not well suited to the needs and reality of the Yukon. Will your party commit to supporting and expanding our education programming, including the Knowledge Keeper Project, so that all communities have access to the stigma-reducing, culturally rooted health education they are asking for?
5. Hepatitis C and Sexually Transmitted and Blood Borne Infections (STBBIs): People living with viral hepatitis often live with years of silent illness and are only diagnosed after severe liver damage has already occurred. Early diagnosis and treatment is critical to preventing morbidity and mortality related to viral hepatitis and reducing the transmission of Hepatitis C. Hepatitis C is a curable disease and elimination is possible. Yet, Yukoners continue to face stigma, travel barriers, and gaps in the current specialist-driven model. People with lived experience, Knowledge Keepers, and community health workers are calling for accessible, community-based solutions. What commitments will your party make to support equitable, community-driven access to Hepatitis C and other STBBI testing and treatment across the Yukon?
We invite you to respond by October 17th, 2025 and to publicly share your commitments.
Sincerely,
Jill Aalhus
Executive Director
Blood Ties Four Directions Centre
Attachment: Background & Impact of Blood Ties Programs
Appendix: Background & Impact of Blood Ties
Founded in 1993, Blood Ties Four Directions Centre is Yukon’s only harm reduction organization. Our mission is to eliminate barriers and create opportunities for people to have equal access to health and wellness, and to live with dignity. We support people across the continuum of substance use, whether they are in active use, reducing use, or pursuing abstinence.
The Supervised Consumption Site (SCS), which opened in September 2021, has served more than 1,060 unique individuals and seen over 58,000 visits. Using the World Health Organization’s definition, the team has reversed 147 overdoses with no fatalities. Using the more up-to-date definition now common across Canada, that number rises to 438 overdoses reversed.
That’s 438 lives saved. Evaluation findings show the site’s impact goes far beyond emergency response:
• 85% of participants report reducing or maintaining safer practices around sharing equipment;
• 47% report fewer overdoses outside the site;
• 72% have not required emergency medical services for overdoses outside the site since they began using it;
• 55% report improved physical health; and
• 43% report improved mental health.
Participants describe the SCS as a stigma-free, protective space that offers safety and dignity. As one person put it, “I’d probably be dead without this place.”
In addition to supervised consumption, Blood Ties delivers a continuum of services:
• Drop-In Centre: A low-barrier space open five days per week, offering lay counselling, referrals, community connection, phone and computer access, and food and beverages.
• Meal Program: Healthy lunches and dinners served seven days per week, plus a community pantry for dry goods.
• Housing Support: Eviction prevention, life skills, housing set-up, emergency housing funding, and supportive housing for eight individuals through the Landlords Working to End Homelessness program and the Tiny House program. We also run Tenant Wisdom workshops on rights, conflict resolution, and problem-solving.
• Education & Prevention: Programs on sexual health, HIV, hepatitis, harm reduction, overdose response/naloxone, mental health, relationships, consent, safer sex and drug use, safe partying, and stigma reduction, tailored for women, incarcerated people, and service providers.
• Harm Reduction Outreach:
o Outreach Van — in partnership with Kwanlin Dün Health Services and FASSY, providing mobile access to harm reduction supplies, food, warm clothing, hygiene kits, pregnancy tests, first aid, sexual health supplies, drug checking, health care, and lay counselling.
o Needle & Pipe Program — distribution of safer use kits, naloxone, hygiene supplies, pregnancy tests, first aid, sexual health supplies, and drug checking with education.
o Drug Checking — fentanyl strip testing, immunoassay, and FTIR spectrometer services at the SCS, the Outreach Van, festivals, and the Needle & Pipe program.
• Knowledge Keeper Project: Elders, peers, and community members share knowledge, mentorship, and cultural healing rooted in Yukon communities. This project supports peer- and Elder-led harm reduction, naloxone training, overdose response, mentorship, storytelling, stigma reduction, and land-based healing. It is guided by the belief that people already hold the wisdom and strength needed to keep each other safe.
Blood Ties has distributed 10,846 naloxone kits (each paired with training) and we have heard from people who access our services about how many lives they have saved using these kits.
In the last fiscal year along (April 2024 – March 2025), our team delivered 65 group training sessions for 532 people across the territory, conducted 293 drug checks, and supported 508 unique individuals who accessed the Drop-In Centre 5,377 times. We provided intensive case management to 137 people and reached hundreds more through community health fairs, carnivals, and awareness days. Our harm reduction programs served 2,135 unique individuals 43,939 times during the fiscal year, including 761 unique individuals who accessed the Supervised Consumption Site 35,634 times.
The toxic drug crisis continues to take lives in Yukon, disproportionately affecting Indigenous people. Blood Ties’ low-barrier services, which are rooted in relationships with the people we serve, are saving lives today and building pathways to long-term health and well-being. Without sustainable support, these gains are at risk. Since the weekend closure, monthly visits have dropped from 3,005 to 1,644. This is especially concerning given that expanding to weekends in January 2024 produced a threefold increase in visits.
