Ottawa Public Health is receiving nearly $4 million from Health Canada for an outreach program that will deliver on-the-ground, community-based outreach to address the ongoing toxic drug crisis.
The funding is part of Health Canada’s Emergency Treatment Fund 2024 (ETF), which allows for up to $2 million in year one and up to $2 million in year two. The call for proposals was announced on October 11 and was open to municipalities outside of Quebec, and Indigenous communities and entities.
In total, Ottawa Public Health and the project’s partners will be receiving over two years is $3,988,338, the City said in a memo.
The project, titled “Urgent Connections”, is being developed in partnership with: Centre 507 Association of Ottawa; MAX Ottawa Community Health; Montfort Renaissance, inc.; Ottawa Inner City Health, inc.; Ottawa Paramedic Services; Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services; Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, inc; Shepherds of Good Hope; and, Somerset West Community Health Centre.
Urgent Connections will aim to provide outreach focused on Ottawa neighbourhoods most impacted by the toxic drug crisis and to “address the seasonality of outdoor drug use” by enhancing peer and harm reduction outreach workers, addiction counsellors and system navigators, and “increasing capacity to provide urgent health and social services and emergency response,” said Dr. Trevor Arnason, interim medical officer of health at Ottawa Public Health and Clara Freire, general manager of community and social services, in the memo.
The project’s two main objectives are to improve community capacity, connections and relationships to address urgent overdose crisis needs and to increase access and availability to substance use health and treatment services.
The news comes as the city prepares for changes at the Somerset West Community Health Centre (SWCHC). In August, the Ontario government announced new regulations that prohibit supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres and required that centres that don’t meet these standards must close by March 31.
Instead, SWCHC has been greenlit to transition into an intensive addiction recovery hub through the province’s new HART hub program, which includes a $378-million investment to create 19 hubs across Ontario.
