HART Hubs aren’t good enough: Kitchener MPP
Posted Jan 8, 2025 02:43:13 PM.
Last Updated Jan 8, 2025 02:43:20 PM.
Aislinn Clancy, Kitchener Centre MPP and Deputy Green Party Leader, released a statement following an announcement that the province will fund the conversion of the Duke Street safe consumption site into a new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub.
The most significant difference between the operation now and what it will become after March 31, is the safe consumption component.
The Ford Government announced back in August that it would force the closure of any safe consumption site that is within 200 meters of a school or daycare center. The facility, operated by Sanguen Health Centre at 150 Duke St. is among those slated to close. It is the Region’s only safe consumption site.
Last week, the province announced $387 million to establish 19 HART Hubs over four years. Nine of those will replace supervised injection sites.
But Clancy is worried.
She told The Mike Farwell Show that without safe consumption, the positive impacts to the community that have come since the facility opened ten years ago, will be washed away.
“I live near there. There have been no needles that I have seen in the last decade. We’ll see that debris crop up. We’ll see public drug use and I’m worried we’ll see deaths because of the abandonment of a lot of the really good health care things we have done over the past few decades.”
Clancy is also concerned about how these decisions will impact emergency services. When overdoses increase, so do calls to 911 leading to more people in the communities emergency departments. It simply adds more pressure to the already overburdened health care system.
In the statement, Clancy said, “I want to remind the premier that we can’t police our way out of a public health crisis. Ontario needs harm reduction and it needs supportive housing and it needs accessible treatment options for people in addictions recovery.”
At the same time, the consumption and treatment services site on Wyndham Street in Guelph is slated for closure. The province has also announced that it will be converted into a HART Hub later this year.
