By: Sylene Argent, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Essex Free Press
In its first two month of operation – between September 29 and November 30, 2025 – there were 141 referrals to the Windsor-Essex Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub, Essex County Council learned at its January 21 meeting.
The average age of service seekers was 41, with 71% identifying as male.
Of those referrals, 21% identified as having sought shelter in County areas before attending the HART Hub. Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare (HDGH)referred the lion’s share of individuals to the program at 42%, members of County Council learned. In that timeframe,43 clients were served through the program, with 42 discharged for various reasons. There were 29 on the waitlist which ebbs and flows – and five clients re-admitted.
In 2024, the Ontario Ministry of Health began the process of launching 27 HART Hubs across the Province to improve access to recovery and treatment services for individuals 16 and over facing housing instability, mental health, and substance use challenges. They are also meant to connect people to arrange of comprehensive treatment and recovery services.
This was done on a three-year demonstration with a goal of reducing ED dependence, increase engagement in services and supports, and strengthen continuity of care.
Later that year, the Report to County Council highlights, over 20 local agencies, including the County of Essex connected to form a strategy to get a HART Hub approved for the Region. The application was submitted in October of 2024 and approved in 2025.
A soft launch took place in September of 2025, demonstrating a collaboration between HDGH, the House of Sophrosyne, and the Windsor-Essex Community Health Centre with support from the Windsor-Essex Ontario Health Team. Since then, the regional HART Hub has been operational and actively delivering services through a collaborative network of clinical, social services, and care providers working together to connect individuals with the supports they need, when they need them.
The HART Hub delivers a variety of services, including: mental health, primary care, food and nutrition, safe living environment including beds, addictions treatment groups and peer support, and supportive housing support services.
There are no financial implications to the County related to the HART Hub, as the funding is provided through the Ministry of Health.
David Sundin, Director of Legislative and Legal Services County Solicitor, oversaw the County’s involvement with the HART Hub, until Natasha Sheeler, Director of Health and Community Services/Sun Parlour Homes Administrator, took that over on the first of the year.
This initiative represented a record investment from the Province, as around $529M was invested to create the HART Hubs across Ontario. Each Hub is receiving $6.3M per year over the three-years, with 1.3M earmarked for supportive housing, Tammy Kotyk, Vice President of Mental Health and Addictions, HDGH said.
Each Hub was to be designed based on specific community needs, Kotyk added. Hart Hubs were intended to be comprehensive, locally based approaches in connecting people with complex needs to a range of low-barrier and critical services.
In explaining why a HART Hub was needed for the region, Kotyk explained Opioid-related deaths year-by-year in Windsor-Essex continue to rise.
“Over the last decade, there has been a drastic increase in the number of opioid toxicity related events across the Province of Ontario. Windsor-Essex County [has surpassed] Provincial mortality rates for six consecutive years,” Kotyk explained. “Cocaine, Benzodiazepines, and Meth-related harm are worse than Provincial rates, and due to socio-economic factors, these numbers are continuing to rise.”
In addition, she relayed that homelessness is strongly tied to repeat ED visits, with all mental health and addictions driving a quarter of all ED visits.
“Chronic homelessness resultsin multiple comorbidities requiring permanent housing to improve individual wellbeing and outcomes,” Kotyk added.
The Windsor-Essex By-Names Prioritized List for supportive housing indicates 463 individuals were experiencing homelessness in 2022, which increased to 915 by August of 2024. In addition, there was an overall 24% increase in shelter use from 2023 to 2024.
Nancy Brockenshire, Executive Director of Windsor Essex Community Health Centre, said this was one of the more exciting proposals she has worked on. “It was truly exciting to get together with 20 partners – from all agencies – as well as those with lived experiences.”
It is all about collaboration.
“How this HART Hub addresses homelessness, addictions, and health services is by adding all the wrap-around services through this journey,” Brockenshire said, adding it is not just about those who come in for the services, but having community outreach.
“We are truly fortunate to have a whole unit at Hôtel-Dieu to be able to walk into,” she said. “We have shown over time these can be challenging clients, and we have been walking into an area with beds, a nursing station, areas for education, areas for primary care. We have security when needed. We have pathways in,” she added.
The housing pathways, she noted, werecritical to the project.
“We know this isn’t always a straight-line for people, but the pathways within that has been created. We want it to be successful.”
Through the initiative, 23 new supportive treatment beds were obtained, 16 at Hôtel-Dieu, two at House of Sophrosyne, and five at Brentwood Recovery Home. There are also 16 double occupancy transitional housing units at Brentwood, and funding to support 108 individual rent subsidies annually for three-years.
Lakeshore Mayor Tracey Bailey said it has been awesome to watch the program – with all its partners – hit the ground running.
“This is the recipe for actually creating change in communities,” she said.
Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy spoke to the fact that around a quarter of the clients were from the county. She said there is no doubt there is a big problem in the county that she believes is not getting enough attention from the City of Windsor as the Service Manager.
At the HART Hub, individuals with complex needs are being supported. “But what is still continuing to happen is people with those very same complex needs are getting put in social housing in remote communities in the County…and they are not getting supports. We are still continuing to set people up to fail in county housing.
“This is great. It is one big, amazing piece of the puzzle. But, the people [the City of Windsor is] putting in social housing in the county are not getting any wrap-around supports, and they are failing,” Bondy worried, wondering what could be done to help that.
Brockenshire didn’t disagree. When it comes to homelessness with addiction, they try to follow through as to where they want to stay. There are navigators that follow. This program can’t take responsibility for some of the homes that have problems.
In answering Amherstburg Deputy Mayor Chris Gibb’s question about the experience for a County residents, Kotyk noted that it is likely a higher number than the 21% who noted they were from the County. If people do not have a Postal Code when they come in, they are not captured as being from the county. As most of the referrals come through HDGH – they are people who could have been brought in by police or EMS from the County and presenting to the Mental Health and Addictions Urgent Care Centre.