Urban Core Community Health Centre desperate for new building

For 17 years the Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Centre has served the most vulnerable people in the city, but the centre desperately needs a new building.

The challenge is getting the money to build the new facility from the provincial government that isn’t willing to help out.

The Hamilton Urban Core has seven thousand registered clients, many of them poverty stricken. The centre is lead by members of the community who need about $525,000 from the province to demolish this building that’s falling apart and build a new one.

But the Hamilton Urban Core Centre says the provincial Liberals propose a new building but with reduced services, programs and providers. The centre says that’s not fair because it would hurt the needs of the most vulnerable in the city.

The centre says the Minister of Health Deb Matthews isn’t living up to her promise about equitable funding for all community health centres.

Part of the problem is that the Urban Core Centre predates the local health integration network or LHIN for short, which is a network the Ontario government created to figure out which health providers deserve money the most.

56 year old Ursula Samuels is on a fixed income and requires regular care because she suffers from diabetes. She says the Urban Core Centre staff have treated her like family for 9 years.

“This place means a lot to me because without this place could see a lot of people with low income would be homeless died on the streets I don’t want that to happen so I want them to have a new building so they can continue the services.”

Tonight a meeting will be held to talk about the status of the building and the request to the Ontario government for money. A petition has already been sent to Health Minister Deb Matthews asking for her government to be fair and give the Urban Core the green light to build a new centre.