Taxpayers paid for the building, they pay to run it, and yet nobody asked those in the vicinity if they wanted this expanded operation in downtown Cobourg.

Since opening in late 2024, the expanded shelter at 310 Division Street has been the centre of controversy in downtown Cobourg.

Upper-tier municipality Northumberland County owns the property, and handed operations to Transition House, a taxpayer-funded charity running the county’s only general emergency shelter for homeless adults and couples. The 35-bed location is set in the heart of Cobourg’s historic tourist district, serving a county of more than 89,000 people.

After months of neighbour complaints about crime, chaos, and open drug use, County Council ordered a higher-barrier model. On June 18, 2025, staff were directed to focus on low-to-moderate needs. By August 13, council approved new rules: bag and pocket searches, eligibility assessments, and exclusion of anyone showing signs of being under the influence.

Then, months later, a joint police operation at the shelter and a nearby Margaret Street residence seized 472 grams of fentanyl, 30 grams of cocaine, 46 grams of crystal meth, and other contraband.

More than a year on, the concerns sound familiar.

In footage recorded at the end of October, a 22-year-old former resident — homeless and struggling with her mental health — details ongoing hard drug use inside the building.

She says her roommate overdosed twice in under 24 hours in their bathroom. After a panic attack, she removed the bathroom door handle and was subsequently kicked out of the shelter for being a “danger.”

She says the ban should have been 24 hours but instead, she got 48.

She also claims executive director Christian Harvey told her to her face that “it’s a human right to do hard drugs in this building,” and says the third floor “smells like metallic waste” from people smoking various substances.

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“A lot of people in here deserve better,” she says.

Before setting sights on Cobourg, Harvey was founding executive director of One City Peterborough, which openly permitted on-site drug use and lost a bid for increased funding from Peterborough council in July 2025. At the time, Mayor Jeff Leal criticized the organization and said it needed “an in-depth audit.”

Two weeks later, Harvey left One City and, several weeks afterward, took on the role of interim director at Transition House.

In response to the video’s allegations, Harvey and Transition House board chair Meaghan MacDonald issued a joint statement. They say the organization does not believe drug use is a human right — without confirming or denying the allegation that Harvey said as much to the woman in the video.

In its joint statement, Transition House wrote that when people have no door to close, struggles that usually happen in private end up happening in public. It’s a neat line, but for the wrong building.

See, 310 Division Street has doors, rooms, hallways, and a locked bathroom at the centre of this story: a resident who allegedly overdosed twice behind one of those doors, and a floor still reportedly smelling of burnt chemicals.

Harvey told local outlet Today’s Northumberland that staff can enter residents’ rooms. So which is it? Are these private doors, or not? The statements conflict.

Meanwhile, Northumberland County says its service agreement prohibits illegal substances, managers meet monthly, outreach staff visit several times a week, and county-employed security conducts bag checks and metal detection. It says it investigated the woman’s service restriction and determined proper procedures were followed, and that there have been no air-quality concerns, but it did not say whether it had investigated drug use on site.

Cobourg Police said they would need until the end of the week to provide information on this year’s drug calls and any follow-up since the November 2025 bust.

Having a policy is one thing. Knowing whether it’s enforced is another — and that’s what taxpayers, neighbours, and people living inside 310 Division Street still deserve to know.