Ontario Government Providing $6.2 In Funding For Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hub In Peterborough

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The Ontario Government is providing support for those struggling with addiction and mental health issues in Peterborough by building a $6.2 million new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub, announced at Showplace Performance on Monday.

Photo by David Tuan bui.

This new hub is part of the province’s plan to support safer communities by investing $529 million to create 27 HART Hubs across the province while also banning drug injection sites from operating within 200 metres of schools and licensed child-care centres.

“For the first time in Ontario’s history, we are taking a look at the entire continuum for homelessness, addictions, and recovery,” said Dave Smith, Member of Provincial Parliament for Peterborough-Kawartha. “The Hart Hub is a fantastic approach; it means that we are crossing different sectors to ensure that we are providing the service where they need it, when they need it, and at the appropriate level. People can enter at any stage into the Hub, wherever they are, and then progress through. It is the first time that any province has looked at the entire continuum for homelessness, addiction, and rehab.”

Peterborough’s HART Hubs, similar to existing hub models in Ontario that have successfully provided people with care, will reflect regional priorities by connecting people with complex needs to comprehensive treatment and preventative services.

Planning efforts to create the HART Hub in Peterborough are underway and the proposed services to be offered could include:

  • Primary and psychiatric care

  • Mental health and addictions services including case management, Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM), withdrawal management, bed-based addiction treatment, and aftercare

  • Peer recovery coaches

  • Mental health and addictions supportive housing (transitional and permanent) and dual diagnosis supportive housing with 24/7 community wrap-around services

  • Occupational therapy

  • Vocational services

“The HART Hub investments are the right concept for the right time. Our community, like others, is struggling with high rates of homelessness, chronic mental illness, substance use and addictions and poverty. For people living this crisis, housing is the solution,” said Donna Rogers, Fourcast executive director. “The Peterborough HART Hub investment will offer housing alongside many of the other essential supports that can help people re-establish their lives through housing stability, addiction and mental health recovery and good health. Our community is ready to maximize this opportunity and build on the strong foundations of housing from homelessness that has been established amongst our community partners.”

The 18 new HART hub locations, including in Peterborough, were chosen due to a provincewide call for proposals last summer. All HART Hubs will have the goal of being operational by April 1. Earlier this year, the province announced that nine drug injection sites in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Kitchener, Guelph and Thunder Bay that are required to close due to being located within 200 metres of a school or licensed child-care centres have been approved for transition to a HART Hub. This brings the total number of HART Hubs across the province to 27, eight more than initially planned.

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