HART Hub expected to launch in Barrie by July

County of Simcoe addresses strategies to tackle homelessness and addiction.

It will be two months until the Ford government’s newest way to help those battling addictions will fully be operational within Barrie.

On Wednesday, city council received an update from the County of Simcoe, detailing its homelessness strategies to date, including what stage the Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hub will be ready in the city.

The County was approved to set up a HART hub in Barrie this past winter, alongside 26 other locations across the province. The hubs will also replace outgoing consumption and treatment service sites scattered across cities in Ontario.

On Wednesday, the County told city council it was making major progress towards finally opening the services to the region’s most vulnerable.

The County said it is currently in what it calls a “soft launch” phase of a four-phase process with the new treatment option.

“We’re scheduling some wellness clinics between May and June to get out there in the community, meet folks who may be eligible for heart hub services, and get started right away with some specific services,” said Amy Marshall, Community Support and Wellbeing director at the County of Simcoe. “Not the full launch, but some services that are more available immediately.”

The County said the hub would include a wide range of mental health and addictions services, including treatment, recovery, supportive housing, primary healthcare and social and human services.

The HART hub will also work in tandem with existing services throughout the county, to look at expanding the services throughout the region.

“That integrated approach is really what’s going to be useful for folks,” Marshall added.

The county also updated city council on other measures it is taking to tackle homelessness in the city, including the controversial clearing of an encampment at Berczy Park last summer.

According to the county, since crews moved in to help offer support, 75 per cent of those living in the encampment have now transitioned into permanent housing.

“Of those who are in and out of shelter, they’re still being supported with our traditional supports,” said Mina Fayez-Bahgat, the County’s Social and Community Services Manager. “it’s a very good pilot of what a ‘Streets to Homes’ model looks like, where you take someone literally from outside, consistently work with them to ultimately result in housing, permanent housing.”

Councillor Jim Harris asked how the County’s work on tackling homelessness relates to ongoing affordable housing projects, such as on Rose Street.

Fayez-Bahgat told council that while the two are not directly tied together, supportive housing can provide an avenue for those going through the HART hub system to find housing that’s more appropriate to their needs.

“The idea is by creating net new housing, you can start to move around your properties to create openings so that you can dedicate it for more specific health-based service,” he said. “We knew that we need to end homelessness using these units, but we want to do it in a strategic way that allows people to come with supports – we create it through the creation of more housing.”

The County said its next steps are to look at creating more transitional and supportive units, such as modular rapid-rehousing programs that it has currently set up across the region.

Over the next decade, it will look to create at least 1000 affordable county-owned units across Simcoe County, as part of its affordable housing master plan.