Protecting Community Safety and Connecting More People to Addiction Recovery Care

Table of Contents

1. Content
2. Additional Resources
3. Related Topics

As a result of the ban on the operation of consumption sites within 200 metres of a school or child care centre, the provincially-funded consumption sites slated for closure include:

• Guelph Community Health Centre - 176 Wyndham Street North, Guelph
• Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre - 70 James Street South, Hamilton
• NorWest Community Health Centre - 525 Simpson Street, Thunder Bay
• Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre (Bathurst) - 168 Bathurst Street, Toronto
• Regent Park Community Health Centre - 465 Dundas Street East, Toronto
• Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services - 150 Duke Street West, Kitchener
• Somerset West Community Health Centre - 55 Eccles Street, Ottawa
• South Riverdale Community Health Centre (Queen) - 955 Queen Street East, Toronto
• Toronto Public Health (The Works) - 277 Victoria Street, Toronto

Self-funded sites slated for closure include:

• Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site, The Neighbourhood Group - 260 Augusta Avenue, Toronto

The government is also proposing to mandate additional measures to increase community safety and security at the remaining sites, including:

• Requiring CTS sites to work with their local police service to undertake a crime prevention through environmental design assessment every three years, and to update their safety and security policies and procedures
• New policies for reporting complaints and serious incidents, discouraging loitering, de-escalation, and service restriction
• Enhanced reporting to enable greater ministry oversight of any safety and security concerns

Additional measures for enhanced compliance and enforcement include:

• Clear public health unit roles and responsibilities, including implementing timelines for starting investigations into complaints and requiring public health units to report all complaints regardless of whether or not they are substantiated
• Improving the Ministry of Health's awareness of community concerns by mandating the reporting of all complaints to the ministry regardless of substantiation or scope
• Transparent posting of compliance and enforcement results for community awareness and confidence

Additional measures for improved community engagement include:

• Increased accountability for community engagement, routine reporting on key indicators, such as total unique clients for wraparound services and number of complaints received, and ability to monitor performance
• New Consumption and Treatment Service (CTS) complaints reporting and escalation policy
• New ability for the ministry to measure responsiveness to complaints

Additional measures to strengthen oversight and responsiveness include:

• Annual requirements for risk assessment and mitigation plans
• Sites will be held to greater accountability requirements, including transparency and community responsiveness, improving site performance monitoring
• Increased reporting requirements mean the ministry will have greater situational awareness and be able to quickly identify trends and make improvements to the overall CTS program requirements

Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs

As part of a comprehensive system of care that prioritizes community safety and focuses on giving people their lives back through treatment and recovery, as well as upstream investments in prevention, the province is investing $378 million in 19 new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs.

View the new HART Hub Client Journey here.

Additional Resources

Related Topics