Javier Salazar and his wife had settled into a routine.
It had now been more than two years since the couple moved into their Chinatown apartment with their then-newborn daughter. Salazar preferred walking the girl to daycare, but there was a reason why his wife always chose to drive despite living just two blocks away from the school.
He was reminded of that reason on a freezing January day in 2026, when he and his daughter were ambushed by a man and his bicycle in the entryway to his apartment.
“I was pretty shaken,” recalled Salazar, whose apartment unit is located directly above New Dawn Medical safe-supply clinic and the accompanying Somerset Drug Mart pharmacy, which opened in June 2025.
Salazar said two individuals had blocked the exit of his residential garage when he walked home with his daughter that day.
“I told them: ‘Can you please move out of the way so I can go out with my daughter?’ and he pushed me with his bicycle,” Salazar said.
Like most parents, Salazar and his wife witnessed — in awe — their daughter’s growth over the past two and a half years. But, at the same time, their Somerset Street West neighbourhood has also changed before their eyes.
This is not the first time that a “safe-supply clinic” in the neighbourhood has fueled the
anxiety of residents and local politicians
. Before New Dawn Medical opened in June 2025, Northwood Recovery — which moved to Chinatown after previously operating in Hintonburg — had been working in the same location since March 2025.
New Dawn Medical has been facing months of similar public backlash over a sustained increase in crime and safety concerns in the area. Despite being under the public microscope since June last year, the Ontario-funded addiction treatment clinic continues operations.
In the year after the opening of the clinic, businesses put up fences, residents became more vigilant and crime in the area increased.
“We got to see the change. But you also see it with the people that live in this building,” Salazar said. “It takes a toll … the fact that now we have to be on our toes.”
What once attracted the couple as being a central and lively hub for restaurants and cafes was now a source of anxiety. In the past year, Salazar has been “on edge” going about his daily activities like walking his daughter to daycare.
‘Traded, sold or stolen’
The clinic’s prescriptions are legal and, theoretically, are meant to be a safer alternative to fentanyl and other fatal street drugs, according to Hintonburg Community Association director Cheryl Parrott.
But Parrott said some clients of the clinic had been seen using those prescriptions as a form of “currency.” Parrott added that prescribed hydromorphone tablets were being “traded, sold or stolen.”
“They don’t really want those prescriptions,” Parrott said. “They may take some, but they use it as currency to be able to trade or sell fentanyl.”
An observational study between March and April 2024 by the Vancouver’s Infectious Disease Centre found that 12 of 50 participants of that study, (24 per cent) diverted some or all of their prescribed supply of hydromorphone by selling or trading it.
Parrott said the direct impact to the Hintonburg community decreased with the relocation of the Northwood Recovery clinic in 2024. Though Hintonburg is no longer on “ground zero” with some of the effects of the clinic, Parrott said the clinic’s move to Chinatown had created similar issues in the Somerset Street West neighbourhood.
“I know what it’s like and I have been (to Chinatown) occasionally and I have seen the activity which is exactly what was happening here with the Northwood clinic,” she said.
An ‘extra cost’ for businesses
Yukang Li, executive director of the Somerset Street Chinatown Business Improvement Area (BIA), said businesses in the Chinatown were not only losing money as a result of increased theft in the area, but were also facing increased operational costs.
“They also have to enhance their security infrastructure such as installing fences,” he said.
Li said a number of businesses had to install fences, including the Pho Bo Ga Express restaurant, which is right across the street from the clinic.
Li added that a Bubble Tea, Deserts & Board Games business, located across the street from New Dawn Medical, also closed in July 2025 because “they just couldn’t handle it.”
The
Ottawa Citizen
has confirmed that the unit remains vacant.
Advocacy efforts
Ottawa Centre MPP Catherine McKenney and Somerset ward Coun. Ariel Troster
wrote a joint letter
to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario calling on the provincial government to investigate New Dawn Medical. But not much has changed since, and the clinic continues daily operations.
Li said an informal group of people were coming together to advocate for the closure of the clinic, so far without luck.
“It consists of people who are really concerned about the negative impacts that the clinic has brought home to the community,” Li said.
The residents of the building where the clinic is located have also created a WhatsApp group chat, Salazar said.
Li said he had been in communication with the head of the Ontario Regional Office in Ottawa regarding efforts to close the clinic’s operations.
The
Ottawa Citizen
reached out to Scott Phelan, who oversees those operations at the regional office, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Li said he had been told that the province wanted to close the site for good, but that timeline remained unknown to him.
Li was part of the first group of advocates who
played a role in the closure
of Northwood Recovery clinic in June 2025.
“The whole community was happy about it,” he recalled. “But to our surprise, the business was transferred to a new name, and a new owner called New Dawn Medical.”
This was a surprise
to the community, who have since expressed their
frustration
, Li said.
Salazar said he did not see benefits to keeping the clinic and pharmacy open, but for him the solution is not in closing all safe-supply sites or pill dispensaries and expecting the addiction crisis to resolve on its own.
For him the solution lies in finding a comprehensive approach “that can be implemented together (and) can actually get people the help they need without affecting others.”
Chinatown: A ‘hazard zone’ for kids?
The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority
announced
in February 2026 that it would extend bus service for students near five downtown Ottawa elementary schools, including some in Chinatown like the Devonshire Community Public School. The transportation authority oversees bus services for English-language school boards in Ottawa.
“I can see why they consider the area to be dangerous,” Salazar said.
Li, who knew Chinatown to have been a prime destination for visitors, said the move was a shocking realization that Chinatown might
“fade into a place of fear.”
“As a community, we don’t like to be designated as a hazard zone,” Li said. “But that’s the sad reality: It’s not safe for kids to walk the streets anymore.”
