Nobody seems willing to talk about the downtown Sudbury “HART Hub.”
Despite nine months having passed since the province announced funding for a downtown Sudbury HART Hub for homelessness and addictions services, it’s still ambiguously defined.
Those involved have either declined to grant interview requests or not returned calls.
This includes the City of Greater Sudbury, provincial Ministry of Health, Health Sciences North, Shkagamik-Kwe Health Centre and Monarch Recovery Services.
Meanwhile, the city has launched its own centralized social services hub in downtown Sudbury, in the shuttered supervised consumption site building located at the Energy Court parking lot behind Chris’ Your Independent Grocer store.
The city plans on ramping up services at Energy Court during the coming months, where a homeless encampment will be allowed to be set up and police have pledged a presence.
With questions left unanswered, it’s unclear whether there will be any connection between the municipal Energy Court hub and the provincial HART Hub.
A website has been set up for the downtown Sudbury HART Hub, at hartbeathub.ca, which includes ambiguous details regarding what the province is calling the HARTbeat Health and Wellness Centre.
The centre, the website said, will be “dedicated to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for healing and recovery.” They’ll offer “comprehensive care that integrates traditional Indigenous healing with contemporary medical practices.”
In the website’s words, the centre will centralize “comprehensive services,” including:
- Primary health care: Providing general health services, chronic disease management, and culturally safe care for Indigenous clients, including traditional healing practices.
- Mental Health Support: Offering psychiatric assessments, counseling, crisis intervention, and peer support programs to facilitate mental health recovery and community reintegration.
- Addiction Recovery: Leading withdrawal management, residential treatment and aftercare services, with a focus on harm reduction and peer-led support.
The centre will be led by a governance structure co-chaired by Shkagamik-Kwe Health Centre and Monarch Recovery Services.
Sudbury.com left phone messages with both co-chairing organizations on Wednesday morning but did not receive a response from either of them by the end of the day.
We also sought clarification from city spokespeople, who referred us to Health Sciences North, whose spokesperson Jason Turnbull declined our phone interview request.
“Work is actively underway between Shkagamik-Kwe Health Centre, Monarch Recovery Services, Canadian Mental Health Association – Sudbury/Manitoulin, Northern Institute for Social Action (NISA), City of Greater Sudbury and Health Sciences North (HSN) in the opening of a new Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub,” Turnbull wrote in an email response.
“We are hoping to share more information in the coming weeks on the important work of the Hart Hub and Lorraine Street Projects on reducing barriers to care and helping people transition from crisis to recovery.”
Many of the HARTbeat Health and Wellness Centre website’s links circle back to its home page, it features stock photos, the advertised phone number (705-806-4656) does not appear to work, and the centre’s address, 5678 Wellness Ave, Suite 200, does not appear on a map.
Sudbury.com submitted a phone interview request through Ministry of Health spokespeople on Tuesday. As is routinely the case with provincial ministries, Sudbury.com’s interview request was denied.
Instead, they sent a written statement whose only insight regarding the downtown project was that its “permanent location is in the midst of its procurement phase, and details about the full range of services and rollouts will be shared once this process is finalized.”
When funding for the downtown Sudbury HART Hub was announced in January, it was part of $6.3 million in annual funding from the province over a three-year period. A portion is going to the recently opened 40-unit transitional housing complex on Lorraine Street, where chronically homeless residents receive supportive services 24/7 in hopes of transitioning them into permanent community housing.
At the time, Mayor Paul Lefebvre described the future downtown HART Hub effort as pulling various services together under one roof to help those experiencing homelessness and addictions receive the various points of help they need.
The idea, Lefebvre said, is that it would be “more of a central hub where people can go in and not go to eight different places.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.