Opening of Kitchener HART hub ‘filling a need’ left by CTS closure

As Kitchener’s Consumption and Treatment Service (CTS) site has closed, the new Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hub has opened.

It comes as the province is looking to shift how it tackles the ongoing homelessness and drug crises across Ontario, looking to change from safe consumption towards addiction support services.

“The way that we’re looking at HART hubs is that these resources are very needed in our community,” Tara Groves-Taylor, CEO of Community Healthcaring Kitchener-Waterloo, said. “And so, we’re embracing the resources that are becoming available and using them as very best we can.”

Kitchener’s new site is one of nine new HART hubs that have opened up of the 28 expected to be pushed forward in total. Those nine were deemed a priority, all originating from CTS sites that were within 200 metres of a school or child-care centre, which the province said was a concern.

Groves-Taylor said the closure of the CTS site is a tough pill to swallow, with a clear difference between what those sites were able to do for the community versus what they’re able to do with the new HART hubs.

The Kitchener CTS site was in operation for close to six years, with the province officially closing its doors on March 31. It came the day before the opening of the city’s HART hub.

“It’s hard when you lose services that are absolutely filling a need and a gap in our community. It will create a loss for individuals who do access those services and have had good outcomes from those services,” Groves-Taylor said.

While those nine HART hubs have officially opened, she said it feels more like a partial opening since not all of its services are fully operational due to apparent funding concerns.

“We opened with what we’re calling a ‘cascading opening’ of HART hub services. We have some of our service offerings online, such as intake, coordination, and rapid access to addictions medicine, that are coming online at the anchor location at 44 Francis St. S.”

The province said it will be pushing a combined $550 million towards the 28 hubs throughout the province. Groves-Taylor said it’s only a matter of time before the site will be able to run full-steam ahead.

“We’d like to think that we will have everything up and running in the next three months or so. That is the idea, anyway. Obviously, we will evaluate as we go along. That is the timeline we working towards with some of those key services in place.”

She added that, CTS site or HART hub, shows a clear need for further attention across Kitchener and the rest of Waterloo Region.

She stated that the closure of the CTS site will mean the loss of valuable services being offered to the community, along with potential lives alongside it. She did add that the opening of the HART hub is, at the very least, a better alternative than nothing taking the place of the CTS site at all.