{"id":170457,"date":"2025-12-06T00:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/170457\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T00:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:33:07","slug":"smiths-falls-homelessness-and-addiction-centre-opens-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/170457\/","title":{"rendered":"Smiths Falls homelessness and addiction centre opens Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>The Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hub in Smiths Falls, Ont., will open its doors to patients on Monday. <\/p>\n<p>The provincial government made the announcement in the eastern Ontario community on Friday. A sister branch in Brockville will start serving patients this coming spring. <\/p>\n<p>Each branch will form one half of a Lanark County hub operated in partnership with Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Addictions and Mental Health.     <\/p>\n<p>The HART model was introduced after\u00a0the Ontario government banned supervised drug consumption sites\u00a0near schools and child-care centres, effectively shutting down 10 of the sites across the province.<\/p>\n<p>Health Minister Sylvia Jones said HART hubs will allow more people to choose treatment instead of &#8220;enabling drug use.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ontario.ca\/en\/release\/1006822\/ontario-opens-homelessness-and-addiction-recovery-treatment-hub-in-lanark-county\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">According to the release about Monday&#8217;s opening<\/a>, HART hubs connect people to &#8220;a range of comprehensive treatment and recovery services&#8221; such as primary care, mental health services, addictions care, social services and employment support.   <\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Void&#8217; of local services, says mayor<\/p>\n<p>As in many other communities, substance abuse and mental health issues have been rising in Smiths Falls, said Mayor Shawn Pankow.<\/p>\n<p>There has been a &#8220;void&#8221; of long-term services in Smiths Falls, Pankow said at Friday&#8217;s announcement. The new facility, he predicted, would help save lives and keep local families together.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Creating opportunities for people to get the treatment they need, the recovery they need, the support they need to turn their life in a different direction is something that has been basically non-existent,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s so many positives from this, and it&#8217;s such a big contributor to the long-term health and wellness of our community.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Balloons festoon the exterior of the homelessness and addiction recovery treatment (HART) centre in Smiths Falls on Dec. 5, 2025. The centre is set to open on Dec. 8.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764981187_390_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.569313593539704\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>HART hubs like the one opening Monday in Smiths Falls connect people struggling with addiction and homelessness to &#8216;a range of comprehensive treatment and recovery services,&#8217; according to the province. (Joseph Tunney\/CBC)<\/p>\n<p>The site will offer clients longer-term, intensive treatment, followed by the chance to eventually move on to supportive housing, said Kim Gifford, chief executive officer with Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Addictions and Mental Health.<\/p>\n<p>Gifford said she&#8217;s excited those resources will soon be available to people in the Smiths Falls area.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it does offer an opportunity to access supports, to access treatment, to access a life that they may not have ever thought they would attain,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>The Lanark County hub is one of over two dozen HART hubs either currently open or set to open across Ontario for about $550 million.<\/p>\n<p>There are two hubs in Ottawa, one in Belleville and one in the works for Pembroke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-170457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}