Guelph’s Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hub, or HART Hub, is officially open.
It is located inside the Guelph Community Health Centre on 176 Wyndham St. North.
The hub was one of nine sites across Ontario that transitioned from a supervised consumption site to a government-approved service hub on Tuesday.
Melissa Kwiatkowski, CEO at Guelph CHC, said the new hub will offer the same services.
“We will have many of the same supports and services we had yesterday (Monday), and in the years preceding. We will just not be able to offer supervised consumption,” Kwiatkowski said.
She said bedding services and other in-house components in the HART Hub model will be phased in over the coming months once a provincial funding agreement is in place.
A full opening was delayed a few weeks ago after the hub didn’t receive provincial funding.
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The organization has yet to receive a provincial funding agreement, but Kwiatkowski said it is “in motion” and expected by mid-April.
Recently, a court injunction was filed that would have allowed the Guelph CHC and eight other sites to remain open temporarily. However, the nine sites applied for funding, reportedly four times as much money than under a previous funding model.
The site is part of an act the provincial government passed in January, prohibiting consumption and treatment services within 200 metres of schools and licensed child-care centres.
Kwiatkowski said they would have lost their funding from the Ontario government if they remained open as a supervised consumption site.
“While we were really pleased to see the court recognize the closing of supervised consumption sites will cause harm across the province, including the loss of life. The government has been clear that they will not fund supervised consumption sites, and they would withhold funding for those who continue to operate,” she said.
The closure of supervised consumption is removing a critical part on the substance use health continuum, according to Kwiatkowski.
The Guelph CTS site had over 41,000 visits and connected 1,000 people to primary care supports and reversed 320 drug poisoning, resulting in just a dozen transfers to the emergency department and no fatalities.
Although supervised consumption is no longer being offered, she said they’re working with community partners to continue their outreach strategy.
She said the goal of the new model is to support people to connect to health care and housing services.
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