Victoria Street in North Richmond is one of Melbourne’s busiest restaurant strips, with a high number of small businesses operated by Vietnamese migrants and former refugees who settled in the suburb over the past three decades.
A short walk from the strip is the state's first medically supervised injecting room (MSIR), opened in July 2018 as part of a trial to curb skyrocketing heroin-related deaths.
For the past two decades, North Richmond has been a hot spot for drug use, with the enveloping City of Yarra Council recording the highest frequency of heroin-related deaths in the state between 2009 and 2016.
Introduced by the Victorian Government, the facility, located at the North Richmond Community Health centre, offers heroin users a space to inject in a supervised health setting.
highlighted that staff at the facility responded to more than 1130 overdoses - an average of three a day - since the clinic opened, and also held 3300 health and social support interventions.
But despite the statistics, local residents and business owners are unhappy.
The facilities at the Medically Supervised Injecting Room in Melbourne Source: AAP
Ai Minh, a 65-year-old business owner who has called Richmond home for more than 20 years, says addicts continue to discard their needles and syringes in the back yard of his shop. He says his business has suffered significantly since the clinic opened because customers fear walking along the street.
“Two women come here to collect needles and syringes every day, [they] clean up here two or three times per day,” he says.
“It is very unsafe. I am afraid to go there. If I injure myself with a used needle, I’ll be miserable. I have to be very careful.”
Le Van Nhan, the owner of Pho Dung Tan Dinh restaurant on Victoria Street, has been in business for more than 30 years in Richmond.
Le Van Nhan owner of Pho Dung Tan Dinh restaurant Source: SBS
He is calling on the government to move the injecting room to a "less dense" area of Melbourne.
“They need to shut down the injecting room in the future, it is in a commercial area, a residential area, and a school is very close. It is our main concern,” he says.
“In the past, our street was a peaceful neighbourhood where people went shopping and ate; many families went to the market. Now they stop. They walk on the street, see syringes, witness drug trafficking, see heroin use. That is the reason why our business is going down.”
Similar fears are shared by Danny Nguyen, the manager of Phuoc Thanh Bakery, who says he frequently witnesses heroin users injecting on the pavement in front of his shop.
Syringes seen along the street Source: SBS
“It was not that many [drug dealers] before, now it getting more serious, the addict does not go to the injecting room, they shoot it outside, leave the needle there,” he says.
“My business is very much affected; people do not come here anymore."
The backlash from business owners has culminated in the 'We Want Our Street Back' campaign, spearheaded by the Victoria St Business Association.
Association President Meca Ho says the injecting room is killing local business and has resulted in a 30 per cent drop in profits.
Source: SBS
“It is affecting our businesses," he says. “Traders are very angry; they don't see drug trafficking decreasing and there are more needles on the street, in the public toilets, car parks. They are very angry, and they want to close it. People living in public housing also want to stop the injecting room.”
Local resident Mai Ly's grandson studies in this area. She says she's scared to let him out of the door.
"Some addicts asked for money, shot in front of them," she says. "Every time he gets off the tram, he is very scared. He cries. He does not dare to get off here, he went further down to the [nearby] Ikea store, then I picked him up there. The injecting room is next to a primary school, which is very terrible.”
Source: SBS
'There is no problem'
On the other side of the coin, there are some in the community who feel the injecting room has had a beneficial impact on North Richmond.
Hung Ly from the Australian-Vietnamese Women's Association, whose headquarters are directly opposite the injecting room, says he feels “safer”.
“There is no problem. It is good to have a medically supervised injecting room in Richmond, I support it. When the injecting room opened, the drug user was more conscious. They will now go to that place to inject, and then drop the needle there,” he says.
“In the past, when the injecting room wasn’t here, they threw all the needles on the street. Now they come to the injecting room where equipment is provided, safe and clean.”
The clinic was announced by Premier Daniel Andrews in 2017, on the back of a spike of drug-related deaths in 2015 and 2016.
“This is not some little drug problem. This is a full-blown public health crisis,” Mr Andrews .
In the clinic's first nine months, 250 people started opioid replacement treatment or had been referred to other forms or drug and alcohol treatment. A further 40 people entered treatment for hepatitis.
Source: SBS
Victoria MP for the Northern Metropolitan Region, Fiona Patten, welcomes the data and says it is proof that the centre is a success.
“What we know is ambulance callouts dropped in the first six months of the centre opening and it has saved people from overdosing on over 1,000 occasions while connecting drug users to other drug services, including Hepatitis C treatment and mental health counselling,” Ms Patten says.
“But we will keep working with drug users and continue to listen to the community on this issue.”
'A complicated issue'
Yarra City Council Mayor Danae Bosler highlights that services are being bolstered to better resource the local population and business owners during the trial period.
"Victoria road is a council priority, the main thing that matters to us, matters to people in our community, so we have regular street cleaning,” she says.
"We have a group sweep through the street, looking for syringes twice a day. We just voted and passed a budget increasing extra $300,000 in the street cleaning in North Richmond area. That is really important to us. People feel safer on a clean street and we need to make sure that our street is as clean as it can be.
City Of Yarra Mayor Danae Bosler Source: Đăng Trình SBS
"We also are working with the state government to make sure that their health care service in place for people needed and work with Victoria police, because they are number one to keep safety on the street. They are working really hard. We have more cops out than we had before on the street, to make sure the residents feel safe."
An independent panel is set to publish a report following the trial period, which will end in mid-2020.
