27-01-2025
Windsor getting new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hub
Windsor will be getting a new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hub, Ontario health minister Sylvia Jones has announced.
The project is co-led by Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, House of Sophrosyne and the Windsor-Essex Community Health Centre.
It's one of 18 new hubs across Ontario the health ministry announced on Monday.
The province previously announced nine others on Jan. 2.
"Today's announcement ... is a great step forward in supporting the marginalized residents of Windsor-Essex," said Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare President and CEO Bill Marra in a news release.
"I commend our minister and her colleagues for their continued commitment to filling the gaps in mental health and addiction care through the augmentation and creation of new services."
The announcement follows a decision by the province in August of last year to close down consumption and treatment services, sometimes known as supervised consumption sites, operating within 200 metres of schools and licensed child-care centres.
Windsor's SafePoint had previously closed in January of 2024.
The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) had opened SafePoint at Goyeau and Wyandotte Street East in April 2023 after it got federal approval to operate as an urgent public health needs site.
The health unit had decided to temporarily fund it until it could get provincial approval.
But its application became stalled when the government undertook an Ontario-wide review of all sites following a shooting near a CTS site in Toronto in August 2023.
The decision to ban sites within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres prevented SafePoint from ever reopening at its prior location and the health unit ended its tenancy of the building late last year.
The Canadian Mental Health Association Lambton Kent Sarnia will also receive a HART Hub, according to the province.
