Sault’s bid for addictions, homelessness hub is a long shot

Don't hold your breath waiting for Sault Ste. Marie to be awarded a new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub from the Ontario government.

Local officials from more than a dozen social agencies are putting together an application, but the chances of winning are slim, city council learned last night.

"It will be very competitive. We know that there are going to be lots of applicants applying to it," said Mayor Matthew Shoemaker.

"Of all the municipalities and communities across Ontario, only 10 will be funded," added Ward 2 Coun. Lisa Vezeau-Allen.

But councillors decided to throw their weight behind a local multi-agency application headed by Canadian Mental Health Association.

If we're awarded a HART hub, we'll get a budget of $6.3 million a year, with $1.3 million allocated for supportive housing.

$1.8 million will be granted in 2024-25 for one-time start-up and implementation costs.

The new hub won't be everything most local officials would like to see.

For example, it won't offer 'safer' supply, supervised drug consumption or needle exchange programs.

But still, it will help address two of our city's major issues: addiction and homelessness, council was told.

"A number of us attended the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, and we met with the minister of health the day that the HART Hub funding was announced: the same day that the process to apply for a supervised consumption site was essentially closed down by the province," Shoemaker said.

"And so this is what's available to us. A HART Hub, like it or don't like it, is what's available to us.

"It's the only thing really that the government has put on the table in terms of new funding to address this crisis, and so we have to apply to it, to be the responsible community leaders that we are."

A new HART Hub will provide things like:

• primary care
• mental health services
• addiction care and support
• social services and employment support
• shelter and transition beds
• supportive housing
• other supplies and services, including naloxone, onsite showers and food

"To not apply for it would would assure that we wouldn't get it, but we are applying it for it, in the way that was recommended to us by the minister of health herself," the mayor said.

"She said that she did not want multiple applications from the City of Sault Ste Marie. She wanted to see one application supported by all the community organizations that play a role in addiction and mental health services.

"So that's what we are doing. That's why we've got everybody pulling in the same direction on this file, and we we are hopeful that, given that we are heeding the minister's advice, that she will see the obvious need in our community, especially since the stats are going in the wrong direction in terms of opioid deaths, overdoses and toxicity of opioid supply in our community," Shoemaker said.

"We are trying. I think this is just an absolute beast of a problem," said Ward 3 Coun. Angela Caputo.

"We heard that in 2010 there were four homeless people. And in 2023 the official count is at 492. I think we can all agree that it's probably much higher than that, but that is what's captured," Caputo said.

"I think that folks are trying to work to work together in the best ways that they can for this community."

"I appreciate the application for the HART Hub. I'll be honest, these scare me a bit, not being able to have access to a safe consumption site, which is what has been proven to work.

"This this is a very vague thing that's been put forward by the province again, but I support the application wholeheartedly," Caputo said.

"I think it's worth pointing out that all of these things that HART Hubs are able to pay for, these are all things that our community has been lacking for years," said Ward 2's Luke Dufour.

"These are things that we've been asking for year after year for as long as I've been on city council, and this is the first time a new funding envelope has opened up at the provincial level for us to apply for those things that our community desperately needs."

Dufour said he was in the room when Mayor Shoemaker talked to the minister of health.

"One of the things that you said to her, which I wholeheartedly agree with and admire," he told the mayor, was that if HART Hubs are going to be the solution to the problem, then Sault Ste. Marie needs that solution more than any other community in Ontario."

"That, to me, is what our stats say. That is what our community is saying. That is what the reality is on the ground."

"Now seeing all of the community providers coming together for one application, I do believe that Sault Ste. Marie has as good of a hand as we ever could have in making this application," Dufour said.

If the Sault's application is successful, operational funding would begin in 2025-2026 through to 2027-2028.

The new facility would be expected to be up and running by winter 2025.