HART Hub Making Progress: Officials

They told the Region homeless people are getting addiction help, and support to help them find stable housing

Some good news from the Niagara region's public health committee, and helping homeless people off drugs and a place to stay.

HART hub officials told councillors they're reaching people, with substantial drops in visits to the hospital by the homeless.

Dr. Rachel Lamont told of a woman living in a tent city, addicted to drugs, but they're working on that.  "She works with a clinician on our team for cognitive behaviour therapy, as well as addiction councilling, with an addiction worker on our team.  She is housed, and has been stably.  She still requires daily support from our team, and we do that with daily medication administration, and talk with the landlord whenever there are issues."

The St. Catharines HART hub opened while the city's drug injection site closes.

HART hub manager Allison Chambers says they get a list of names from the region's homelessness services each week.  "And with that list we also prioritize specific individuals, so people that are in a camp, are closer to the top of the list, also individuals who are shelter restricted."

She says it takes time to help someone from the street to getting help they need.

However, those at Positive Living Niagara's drug injection site are concerned as it closes next month.

Director Talia Storm told the same committee they've helped many people get off drugs.  "People have a right to choose service, and so some people aren't quite ready to access treatment services, or when they are, the services might not be available.  That's a fairly big misconception, the other is that the consumption site provides substances to people, which is not the case, people are bringing their own on site for testing."

She says Hamilton has seen a rise in drug problems after its site recently closed, and wonders why both the HART hub and injection site can't both work.

There's also been overwhelming community support for the drug injection site.  "We are quite concerned about the impact to the broader health care system with this decision, particulariy for our friends at Niagara EMS, and the hospital system, in terms of what this ripple impact could look like.  Again, there are sites that have closed in other communities, and there's a lot of research going on with what the impact looks like there."

The HART hub does not allow drug use while people get treatment.