The Ontario Ministry of Health has approved a new Indigenous-led Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub to help people struggling with homelessness and addiction in Sault Ste. Marie and the North Shore region of Ontario. The initiative will provide counselling, transitional beds, supportive housing and culturally based supports for residents in the city and surrounding communities such as Blind River and Sagamok Anishnawbek. It is intended to bridge gaps in care for community members most affected by the local addiction crisis.
The program is managed by Maamwesying North Shore Community Health Services and focuses on bringing care directly to communities through a hub-and-spoke model that integrates clinical services with traditional Indigenous knowledge and cultural practices. In Sault Ste. Marie, the project will work with the Indigenous Friendship Centre in Sault Ste. Marie to operate 30 transitional beds where people can stay while they work toward more stable housing. Other sites will include a combined total of 24 transitional beds shared between Sagamok Anishnawbek and the Benbowopka Treatment Centre in Blind River (the Maamwesying release does not specify an exact split between those two locations).
The expansion was announced in response to a local overdose emergency: in the first quarter of 2024, Sault Ste. Marie recorded the highest opioid-related death rate in Ontario, with the Algoma region’s opioid toxicity mortality rate reported to be nearly three times the provincial average for that period. The hub’s model pairs primary healthcare and addiction treatment with Indigenous-led cultural supports to provide a more familiar, trauma-informed environment for people seeking help.
The provincial government is providing an annual operating budget of $6.3 million for three years for the hub’s operations, along with $1.8 million in one-time start-up funding for renovations and equipment. That funding is intended to support primary healthcare, mental-health and addiction services, transitional beds and supportive housing across the three locations so residents can access services through multiple local pathways.
Note on services and policy context: the HART Hub rollout is part of a provincial model that does not include supervised consumption services, safe supply or needle-exchange programs. That policy shift has been controversial: proponents emphasize treatment-focused, wraparound care, while critics and some public-health officials have expressed concern about reduced local access to harm-reduction services.
Maamwesying says the HART Hub is expected to begin operations in winter 2025 and will aim to coordinate culturally safe, community-based pathways to care across Sagamok Anishnawbek, Blind River and Sault Ste. Marie.
