Guelph’s Homeless Addiction Recovery Treatment Hub, also known as a HART Hub, will receive new supportive crisis beds this summer.
The hub offers a comprehensive range of services for individuals experiencing homelessness, mental health challenges and disorders related to substance use.
Stonehenge Therapeutic Community will provide the crisis beds; one of three new additions being phased in over the next year.
Mellisa Kwiatkowski, CEO of the Guelph Community Health Centre, said the number of beds will double by the end of the summer.
“Stonehenge Therapeutic Community will be running those beds. They currently offer a part-time crisis stabilization program; it’s four part-time beds. And by the end of the summer, it’ll be eight full-time beds operating,” Kwiatkowski said.
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She said the beds will be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week at an alternate location in 2025 and early 2026. The crisis stabilization program helps people stabilize, recover and sleep as well as seek support.
The hub provides housing, treatment support to adults and youth 16 years old and up. Since transitioning, the hub has seen 240 visits per day.
The other two additions are a withdrawal management program and a supportive housing program.
Kwiatkowski said the hub will aim to expand on the supportive housing program to support 150 new clients in Guelph and Wellington County.
The withdrawal management program won’t open until next spring, according to Kwiatkowski.
“We’ve never had withdrawal management services in this community, so we need time to find and build the space for that,” she said.
Kwiatkowski said the new additions will benefit and positively impact the community.
“What we’re advocating for is a full continuum that would include all of those treatment-based services that we definitely need in the community. And also, a full suite of harm-reduction services so that we have all the tools we need to keep people safe and healthy,” she said.
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