Guelph’s new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery and Treatment Centre, or HART Hub, won’t open next month as scheduled.
The Guelph Community Health Centre said it has not received a provincial funding letter from the provincial government.
Melissa Kwiataowski, chief executive officer, said the provincial election played a part in the delay.
“My understanding is that typically whenever there is an election, there are no funding announcements or agreements during that time,” Kwiataowski said.
She said the HART Hub is still working on having partial services open as of April 1, but without a funding letter, the hub cannot be fully operational.
The consumption and treatment site, located inside Guelph CHC, is set to close on March 31 as part of an act that was passed in January by the province. It prohibits consumption and treatment services within 200 metres of schools and licensed child-care centres.
Kwiataowski said there’s a feeling of uncertainty among those within the organization.
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“All around our community is feeling it. We’re hearing concerns from local businesses, other social services agencies downtown, other health-care providers like the hospital and others about what this is going to mean for them,” she said.
She added that there has been an increased request for training local businesses and downtown social services to be equipped to deal with the closure. Clients and community members can still come into the building on Wyndham Street and get access to outreach and health supports.
The program is one of nine sites to be transitioned into a HART Hub by April 1.
Kwiataowski said the hubs will meet a need for a certain subset of the population, but there will be an “ongoing gap” for critical life-saving services with the removal of the CTS sites.
To help manage the impact of the closure, she said the Guelph CHC has been working with community partners to refer clients to other services.
Since submitting its application last October, Kwiataowski said the organization has been working really hard to be ready for next month. She can’t provide a timeline, however, until there is a funding agreement in place.
“We have a lot of the foundational pieces that we have been preparing for as a community, not just Guelph CHC, but many of our partners,” she said.
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