Kingston’s Integrated Care Hub may be living on borrowed time.
Municipal funding to operate the homeless care hub on Montreal Street runs out at the end of the month, and so far, there is no financial commitment from the province to keep the doors open.
The Integrated Care Hub provides a one-stop shop of services for individuals experiencing everything from homelessness to addiction issues.
The hub was created in 2020 to address a homelessness crisis and an opioid epidemic exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city has provided funding to keep the ICH running until the end of March, but the mayor says the millions of dollars needed to keep it running after that is beyond the city’s capacity to pay.
“I’ve been very clear in my conversations with the minister, and with other provincial officials, that the ICH, for it to continue, needs to have that provincial funding support,” says Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson.
HIV/AIDS Regional Services oversees the ICH, and while no provincial commitment has been made, HARS executive director Gilles Charette says the hub’s work makes a case for ongoing funding.
He says the care hub has prevented 600 drug poisonings from becoming fatalities.
“That’s significant in that it makes KFL&A one of only two jurisdictions in the province that didn’t see an increase, or in some cases, a dramatic increase, in drug poisoning deaths,” says Charette.
But that work hasn’t been without controversy.
Residents and businesses have had issues with garbage, vandalism, drug use, drug deals and violence.
“They just come out after shooting up, and they come out and are toxic,” says Wayne Bierkos, whose wife owns The Wise Stop, which is located across the street from the hub.
“They’re upset, they’re angry, and they want to find somebody to take it out on.”
But for some that have used the ICH’s services, the centre has been a lifeline.
“I honestly don’t think I would be here right now, because this place has saved me in more ways than one,” says Tristan Bagnoli, who has been homeless off and on for five years.
Mike Klazer, who used the hub’s services, says it helped get on the right path to becoming housed.
“This place… let’s just say it kind of put me back on my feet,” he says.
“I’ve got a place now.”
Charette says if funding doesn’t come through by the end of the month, they will work to maintain as many services as possible.
How, and potentially where, they are delivered could change, but the doors at the Integrated Care Hub will remain open for now.
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