The Works, a longstanding harm reduction clinic downtown, is facing a looming deadline to vacate its current location after the building it has inhabited for 35 years was sold.
City council appears to be eyeing a potential relocation to 50 Richmond St. E. — which is just around the corner from The Works’ current location at 277 Victoria St. — but city staff refused to confirm to TorontoToday whether this will be The Works’ new home.
The 277 Victoria St. property was originally owned by the city, but was sold to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) last spring as part of the city’s “ModernTO” program, which will eventually shrink the city’s office footprint from 55 locations to about 15.
TMU agreed to lease the property back to the city, allowing Toronto Public Health (TPH) offices and The Works to continue operating there temporarily. But the April 2025 deadline to vacate the premises is just over four months away.
TPH’s administrative offices are expected to relocate to Union Station and eventually to Metro Hall, but it’s still unclear what will happen to The Works. The harm reduction clinic supports people who use drugs and offers counseling services, a methadone program, overdose response training and drug checking services.
A motion that will go before city council on Dec. 17 seeks to award a lease for 50 Richmond St. E. to Unity Health Toronto so the hospital network can operate clinical services there in partnership with TPH.
A city report about this proposed lease explicitly notes that clinical services at 277 Victoria St. need to be relocated. When asked if this meant The Works could move to 50 Richmond St. E., city staff told TorontoToday “plans are still under development.”
“Other programs and clinical services, including outreach, dental care, sexual health and administrative offices, will move to 50 Richmond Street East,” TPH said in an email.
The Unity Health lease would be nominal, or below market rate, and would be for a 10-year period. It’s unclear how much the city might charge Unity Health for the lease if the plan is approved by council. Nominal leases can sometimes be token payments of $1 per year.
Staff determined the opportunity cost of the lease, or how much money the city will lose out on by offering a nominal lease, is $4.36 million over 10 years.
If the plan goes through, the city will also provide up to $10 million in funding to Unity Health to cover the cost of ensuring the building is accessible for those with disabilities.
In August, it was announced the supervised injection site at The Works was set to close after the province moved to ban all supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres.
Even if The Works were to move to 50 Richmond St. E., TPH confirmed that the safe injection site would not move with it.
277 Victoria St. and 50 Richmond St. E. are both close to the Early Learning Centre in TMU’s Kerr Hall West, so a safe injection site would not be allowed in either building under provincial rules.
The plan to give Unity Health a nominal lease of 50 Richmond St. E., was passed without amendment at the city council’s general government committee meeting on Wednesday. The motion will be voted on by city council at its next sitting.
Councillors Paul Ainslie, Vincent Crisanti, Nick Mantas and Lily Cheng voted in favour of the motion while councillors Stephen Holyday and Jon Burnside opposed it.
