Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie is on board with the province’s decision to focus on drug treatment and recovery.
In an announcement last week, the Ford government said 10 locations will close by next March and nearly two dozen Homelessness Addictions Recovery and Treatment or HART hubs will be built to replace them.
Guthrie said he’s very thankful the government is building hubs that will offer the same services instead of just closing down the sites.
Among the locations will include the Guelph Community Health Centre on Woolich Street.
“I’m really looking forward to finding out the criteria on these HART hubs that should be coming out in the next couple of weeks. And then hopefully we can move quickly to make sure that we can get the funding in place right away,” Guthrie said.
Guelph will get a chunk of the nearly $400 million in provincial funding that will go towards the creation of the 19 HART hubs.
He said the city is guaranteed funding as long it advocates appropriately and collaborates with its health care partners.
There has been an injection site in the Royal City since 2018.
Guthrie said he’s heard more of an increase of concern in the last few years from residents, businesses and even visitors that are around the CTS site and the level of discomfort that has grown. But the stories are secondary, and he said those are not the reasons why the site will be banned.
New provincial regulations prohibit consumption and treatment sites from within a 200-metre radius of schools and daycare centres and there is a daycare is near the site.
He is hopeful to have something in place before next March.
“I think there will still be a lot of services for those struggling with addictions and mental health and homelessness, and other health care issues. The only part that won’t be available anymore is the injection services,” he said.
The HART hubs focus on recovery treatment, and he said it will offer beds for people experiencing homelessness.
He said this recovery model needs to be given a chance.
As far as where the HART hub will be located in the Royal City, Guthrie said that information will be part of the criteria when the application process is released by the province at the end of August.
He said it may be at the same location as the injection site.
“I’ve already talked to those involved with the CTS site to say as soon as that application becomes live, we need to get together right away and sit around a table in unity and in joint advocacy to figure out exactly what we can do together as we try to get the funds for the HART hub model,” he said.
Among the nine other locations set to close in early 2025 will be the Sanguen Health Centre on Duke Street in Kitchener.