Chinatown Residents Voice Frustrations Over Controversial Safe-Supply Clinic Next Door

When a man blocked the exit of his residential garage on Somerset Street West and shoved him in front of his young daughter on a freezing January afternoon, the incident crystallized everything Salazar had watched unfold since a controversial safe-supply clinic moved into the ground floor of his building.

"I was pretty shaken," said Salazar, whose apartment sits directly above New Dawn Medical and its adjoining Somerset Drug Mart pharmacy. "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."

The encounter was not an isolated moment but part of a pattern residents of 838 Somerset Street West and the surrounding Chinatown neighbourhood say has worsened since the clinic opened at that address in March 2025. Northwood Recovery operated there first, drawing immediate community backlash over open drug use at its doorstep. After months of pressure, Northwood announced it was closing permanently on June 9, 2025. But on that same day, New Dawn Medical, an Ontario chain with more than 20 addictions clinics across the province, opened at the same location, alongside the Somerset Drug Mart pharmacy.

Yukang Li, executive director of Ottawa's Chinatown BIA, described the switchover as a gut punch to a community that had fought hard for the closure. "The whole community was happy about it," he said. "But to our surprise, the business was transferred to a new name, and a new owner called New Dawn Medical."

Somerset ward Councillor Ariel Troster, who had been told by Northwood's physician-owner that he was closing his practice in the city, called the handoff "a huge betrayal." By December 2025, Troster and Ottawa Centre MPP Catherine McKenney had sent a formal joint letter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario requesting an investigation into New Dawn's practices. Their letter, submitted December 8, alleged that doctors were largely absent from the clinic, with prescriptions being issued through iPad consultations, and that drugs were dispensed in quantities enabling diversion onto the street.

"It's been a real nightmare since this clinic opened," Troster said. She described a "whole criminal ecosystem" cropping up around the Somerset Street West site, including dealing and violence. McKenney, who lives in the neighbourhood, said the situation had been visible to her daily since the closure of the Somerset West Community Health Centre's supervised consumption and treatment services, which shut around the same time the clinic opened. "Just the overall chaos after the closure of the supervised consumption site: a tremendous amount of open drug use on the street," McKenney said.

For residents of the building itself, the toll has been compounding. Nik Sydor, whose partner Mao also lives in the neighbourhood, did not hold back. "There's nothing holding these establishments accountable for the negative impacts that they're having on the community," he said.

In a public statement, New Dawn Medical said it cooperates with law enforcement, maintains video surveillance, and employs an on-site security guard. The clinic's medical director, Dr. David D'Souza, said the company stepped in because it felt an obligation to patients who might otherwise have lost access to care. The CPSO investigation remains ongoing, and as of April 2026, residents in the building continue to live alongside a clinic their own elected representatives have formally asked regulators to scrutinize.