Niagara HART Hub reports helping 16 people find homes after seven weeks in operation

The new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hub (HART) in Niagara is counting their victories after seven weeks in operation.

Behind the scenes, HART Hub Niagara has been in the works for months.

“When the call for proposals for HART Hub came out back in 2024, we came together as a community and we looked very specifically at the gaps in service, and the strong needs of our community,” said Alison Chambers, the program manager for HART Hub Niagara.

It operates across two locations in St. Catharines: one for administrative and clinical support, and the other for alternative community support.

Its main goal is to connect its members to supportive housing and relevant mental health support.

“I go out to meet them where they are at, in the community — that may be whether they’re sleeping rough in encampments or shelters,” said Shelly Grignano, an outreach intake worker at HART Hub Niagara. “I introduce the program to them, tell them what it’s about and if they are interested I proceed with some assessments, consents, and I bring them in for a collaborative intake.”

WATCH MORE: First HART Hub set to open in Niagara

To date, HART Hub Niagara has welcomed 70 members through its doors, 16 of whom have found housing.

The hub says it is equipped to be able to support around 200 members at any given time.

Ontario announced its intent to transition its safe consumption sites into HART Hubs last year.

Some safe consumption sites are set to wrap up operations as of June, which has raised concerns from community members and advocates.

One person told CHCH News that they’ve seen people in the area hide to do their drugs, and while they would rather they not do it in a school yard, they would rather they do it in a safe space. A space that if taken away would leave them nowhere to go.

Scott Neufeld, an active member of the community and is a professor at Brock University, says HART Hubs are a needed addition to the ecosystem.

WATCH MORE: Niagara advocates raise concerns as Ontario cuts safe consumption site funding

“A HART Hub is a nice example of an integrated, focused form of wraparound supports for people who are experiencing a lot of challenges in our community,” said Neufeld.

Neufeld is less convinced of the province’s end goal.

“It creates a massive gap and really, the injustice here is that there is no reason why we should replace supervised consumption services with a HART Hub,” said Neufeld. “These are absolutely complimentary interventions — if this provincial government was serious about addressing homelessness and substance use, they would keep investing and expanding both of those interventions.”

For the time being, HART Hub Niagara says it will continue to assist people in the Greater Niagara Region to the best of its capacities as it continues to look for areas of improvement.

“As part of a demonstration project, we’re always looking for opportunities for improvement, we work very closely with our partners to address what’s working and how we can adjust and really make the model as effective as possible,” said Chambers.

READ MORE: Ontario opens St. Catharines HART Hub after funding delay