HART Hubs opening in Kitchener and Guelph after CTS locations close

New details have been shared about the province’s $378 million plan to create 19 Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs across Ontario, including locations in Kitchener and Guelph.

The Ford government announced last year it would be closing 10 consumption and treatment services (CTS) sites due to their proximity to schools and daycares.

Among them were 150 Duke Street in Kitchener and 176 Wyndham Street North in Guelph.

Guelph HART Hub

On Thursday, the province revealed the CTS site in Guelph will become a HART Hub.

The newly named Guelph-Wellington HART Hub will help teens and adults who are struggling with “moderate to severe mental health and/or addictions challenges and experiencing homelessness, being at-risk of homelessness, or requiring intensive services to main access to housing.”

Existing services offered by the Guelph Community Health Centre, which will be co-located or integrated into the Guelph-Wellington HART Hub, include “Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM), the Flexible Assertive Community Treatment Team (FACTT), Guelph Community Health Care Pharmacy, Integrated Mobile Police and Crisis Team (IMPACT), Hive Health Services (which provides health services to people with HIV/AIDS as well as gender-affirming care), and Housing Support Workers from the County of Wellington.”

The province said the HART Hub will also offer 24/7 crisis service, crisis stabilization beds and medically supported withdrawal management beds.

CTV News reached out to Sarah Haanstra, director of integrated programs for the Guelph Community Health Centre, for her reaction to the announcement.

“We are so grateful that Guelph has been approved for a HART Hub,” she wrote in an email. “We are still waiting on additional details from the province about next steps and it’s premature to discuss until we know more.”

Kitchener HART Hub

Once the CTS site closes at 150 Duke Street, Kitchener’s HART Hub will open a few blocks away at 44 Francis Street South, inside the Tannery building.

The province explained that Community Healthcaring Kitchener-Waterloo will “prioritize system navigation” by increasing the number of outreach teams, offering longer hours and expanding its reach within the community.

Community Healthcaring Kitchener-Waterloo, the Waterloo Region HART Hub, at 44 Francis Street South on Jan. 2, 2025. (Dave Pettitt/CTV News)

Community Healthcaring Kitchener-Waterloo and the House of Friendship will be co-leads for the new Waterloo Region HART Hub.

The services offered will include: “mental health services, addiction care and support, shelter and transition beds, primary care, supportive housing, social services, ID and employment.”

The province said they will also be opening naloxone and satellite hubs at “carefully selected locations where the HART Hub’s target population already gathers,” but provided no additional details about where or when they would open.

“What we know is that we have been granted the funding allotment for the three-year pilot and that it is expected that we will begin implementation of a transition plan with our partners at the region, Sanguen [Health Centre] and Langs Community Health Centre in the coming months,” said a joint statement from Community Healthcaring Kitchener-Waterloo and the House of Friendship. “We are encouraged by this funding coming into our community, given the needs of those that we serve.”

“We don’t know the details of that funding,” said regional chair Karen Redman. “We know that there’s implementation costs, so there’s a lot of work left to be done. But it will be done with partners focusing on the continuum of care and support the people who need these services.”

“We are safer with the CTS”

Some critics are not convinced the new HART Hubs will better address the community drug crisis.

“This investment is a really big deal, but we can’t do it without all the other parts of the puzzle because we’ll leave people behind,” said Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy.

She worries that once CTS locations close, users won’t have access to clean needles.

“I do think we’re going to see more deaths. We’re going to see public use of drugs rise. We’re going to see toxic drugs increase and the spread of disease,” Clancy stated. “Not giving clean needles means we get more Hep-C, more AIDS. We need that at the HART Hubs.”

“The pilot HART Hubs are unequivocally no substitute for eliminating the proven CTS sites,” Michael Parkinson, of the Drug Strategy Network of Ontario, explained in an email to CTV News. “The province repeats the word ‘safety’ an infinite number of times, but this is not about safety – we are safer with the CTS, not without it.”

Ontario’s auditor general has also criticized the province’s decision to shut down CTS sites. In a report released in December, the auditor general said Ontario’s Ministry of Health did not “develop a comprehensive plan to assess and quantify the impacts,” including any increases in overdoses or emergency room visits. The report also noted that the province failed to conduct consultations with those impacted by the transition to HART Hubs.

Redman admitted there aren’t any easy solutions to the drug crisis.

“It’s not a silver bullet, but we will continue to work together to make sure we fulfill the needs,” she told CTV News. “Some of this funding has been the kind of services that we’ve been lobbying for for decades. It’s wonderful to see the province coming up with this funding.”

The HART Hubs are set to open on March 31, 2025.