Over $37m to help address harms related to substance use

eAwazMedicine

Ottawa – To help support the response to the overdose crisis and address harms related to substance use and the toxic illegal drug supply, the Government of Canada has announced over $37 million in funding for 42 innovative community-led projects across Canada.

With this funding, these projects will help improve health outcomes for people who are at risk of experiencing substance-related harms and overdose by scaling up prevention, harm reduction and treatment efforts across the country.

Funding is provided through Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP), which supports evidence-informed and innovative initiatives across a range of interventions—prevention, harm reduction and treatment—involving a broad range of legal and illegal substances.

British Columbia (total of $11,429,678)

24/7 Hospital Emergency On-Call Counselling Program
Dan’s Legacy Foundation – Delta, BC
$2,505,185 over 25 months is being provided to support the organization’s 24/7 intervention program for at-risk youth (ages 15-25). With this funding, the organization will hire additional therapists at several hospital emergency departments in Metro Vancouver to provide at-risk youth admitted for self-harm, psychosis, and overdose with trauma-informed care. The program will connect youth to a range of services, including prescribed opioids (safer supply) and Suboxone assisted tapering as warranted. Once stabilized, youth will enter the organization’s core counselling program, a minimum of 16 weekly one-on-one counselling sessions with a therapist. Once they have completed the counselling program, youth will receive quarterly follow-ups for a full year and be offered wrap-around support including access to a food bank, community dinner, fitness, Indigenous Cultural Workshops and job-skills training as entry level cooks.
Theme: Youth and Safer Supply
Funding envelope: B2022

Addictions Support and Employment at EMBERS Eastside Works
Eastside Movement for Business and Economic Renewal Society (EMBERS) – Vancouver, BC
$213,720 to be added to the existing $362,895 for an additional 12 months. This project provides rapid access, long-term addictions care to people who have gained employment through the EMBERS Eastside Works program.. Eastside Works is a low-barrier income generation hub pilot program that finds suitable work for individuals, most of whom live with substantial substance use and mental health issues.
Theme: Community-based
Funding Envelope: B2022

Care-A-Van Mobile Outreach Substance Use and Addictions Program
Comox Bay Care Society – Courtenay, BC
$140,000 over 24 months to deliver a peer-led component to existing mobile substance use outreach service for homeless and those at risk of homelessness in the rural communities of the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, BC. Through the mobile health care unit, individuals will have access to outreach services such as harm reduction education, mental health supports, crisis stabilization, navigation services, and health assessments. The funding will also help the organization add a peer component to improve services and enhance client and community engagement.
Theme: Mobile Services
Funding Envelope: B2022

CORE (Community Opportunities for Real Employment) 
Lift Community Services of Qathet Society – Powell River, BC
$295,735 over 24 months to expand a harm reduction program for youth who use drugs in the Qathet Regional District, on BC’s Northern Sunshine Coast. The project will target 30 youth who will be offered mentorship, connections to local cultural and land-based learning and work experience in a youth-led café setting. This project will help them develop life skills related to safer substance use, social and cultural connections and resiliency skills related to positive substance use behaviour change.
Theme: Local
Funding Envelope: B2022

Expansion of the Peer Program to The Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre Shelters
Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre Association – Vancouver, BC
$144,429 over 24 months to provide cultural healing for women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside community who are dealing with substance use and addiction. Through this funding, the organization will expand its Peer Program by hiring a Skills Development and Programming Coordinator and 10 Community Peer Workers in two Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre shelter locations. Mainly led by women with lived or living experience, the program will offer services such as outreach to other organizations for supports, access to daily meals, safe services for pregnant women, medical services, as well as harm reduction supplies.
Theme: Indigenous
Funding envelope: B2022

Pre-Treatment Engagement Program (PEP or Pre-Engagement)
Pacifica Treatment Centre Society – Vancouver, BC
$674,828 over 24 months to offer a pre-treatment program for individuals on the waitlist for residential treatment services from the Pacifica Treatment Centre in Vancouver, BC. This program will help mitigate the potential for harms, enhance readiness for those on the waitlist and reduce the high waitlist drop-out rate. Individuals will be able to stay in this preliminary programming for as long as they are waitlisted and then seamlessly transition to in-residence treatment.
Theme: Community-based
Funding envelope: B2022

Strengthening Substance Use Prevention, Harm Reduction and Pathways to Care in Sooke School District
Board of Education of School District No. 62 (Sooke) – Victoria, BC
$120,930 over 24 months to support middle and secondary school-based events and build teacher capacity related to substance use in Sooke, BC. Through this funding, the organization will be able to launch its ‘’Youth in Action’’ campaign including planning and hosting health-related activities. This funding will also enable the organization to develop and implement a learning strategy for teachers and other school staff through a community of practice, educational events, learning resources and support services.
Theme: Youth
Fuding Envelope: B2022

Sts’ailes Community-Based Addictions Counselling Training Framework
Sts’ailes – Agassiz, British Columbia
$488,288 over 24 months to train students to provide mental health and substance use services using trauma-informed and land-based methods. This project will support approximately 110 students through a variety of programs and workshops through accredited institutions. By educating more community members, Sts’ailes will build the capacity of their own community members, as well as other Indigenous people within the Fraser Salish Region.
Theme: Youth, Indigenous
Funding Envelope: B2022

Supportive Recovery Program (SRP) Online Curriculum & Training Project: A Response to the Opioid Crisis-Developed by LLEAFF & Lookout Housing & Health Society
Lookout Housing and Health Society – New Westminster, BC
$824,766 over 24 months to design and deliver an online substance use recovery program for men. The funding will enable the organization to implement a 60-day online substance use recovery program for men aged between 19 and 45 who use opioids and other substances, and are lacking housing and employment stability. This funding will also be used to provide training for front-line workers in residential treatment programs in the regions of Vancouver and Surrey.
Theme: Substance use and implementation of online/virtual tool.
Funding Envelope: B2022

Sheway Indigenous Cultural Support Program
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority – Vancouver, BC
$1,172,775 over 24 months to deliver a comprehensive lndigenous cultural support program at Sheway in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Sheway provides health and social services to people who are either pregnant or parenting and use (or have used) substances. Services will include access to Elder support and lndigenous-specific cultural activities and workshops in order to improve cultural and spiritual wellness and reduce harm associated with substance use.
Theme: 
Indigenous.
Funding Envelope: B2022

The PACE Outreach, Mentorship and Drop-in Program
Providing Advocacy Counselling and Education Society – Vancouver, BC
$378,266 over 24 months to expand an existing peer support program for sex workers who use substances in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This includes Indigenous and racialized sex workers, 2SLGBTQIA+ sex workers, sex workers experiencing extreme poverty, sex workers struggling with mental health and those already heavily engaged in substance use. The project will hire peer support workers to provide outreach services to partner organizations including social housing; distribute harm reduction supplies and educational materials; and build trusting relationships with hard-to-reach members of the sex work and drug use community.
Theme: Community-based, Indigenous, Racialized communities.
Funding Envelope: B2022

The Victoria Safer Alternatives for Emergency Response (SAFER) initiative
AVI Health and Community Services Society – Victoria, BC
$1,848,718, in addition to the more than $4.6 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to AVI Health and Community Services Society to continue to deliver a safer supply program that is prescribing pharmaceutical-grade medications to people most at risk of overdose. This includes both outreach and medication delivery and fixed site services. This project assists in connecting patients to primary care, mental health and addictions services, and social supports, including housing/income stabilization, education and employment.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

An Innovative Safe Supply Program to Support People with Severe Opioid Use Disorder within a low-barrier primary care setting in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver
Providence Health Care Research Institute Trust – Vancouver, British Columbia
$1,291,500, in addition to the more than $3.6 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to Providence Health Care Research Institute to continue to provide a safer supply program in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. In partnership with the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the project will offer enhanced access to opioid agonist therapy, as well as alternative pharmaceutical interventions such as injectable opioid agonist therapy, including hydromorphone and diacetylmorphine and fentanyl patches to those with severe opioid use disorder. It will also help connect patients to primary care, peer support workers and social workers.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

UIHHC Overdose Response Expansion Project – Providing Cultural Safety and Safer Prescription Medicine Alternatives
Urban Indigenous Health & Healing Co-operative) – Vancouver, BC
$1,330,538, in addition to the more than $3.4 million already received from SUAP, the Urban Indigenous Health and Healing Cooperative will  continue to expand its existing safer supply and Indigenous Elder-led cultural healing programs at the Kilala Lelum Health Centre in Vancouver’s Downtown Lower Eastside. The project will improve the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people living with opioid use disorder and reduce overdose events and deaths. It will also offer important information on how to better provide care to this segment of the population. The additional funding will also support the expansion of primary care, and wrap-around services, such as connecting clients with chronic pain management services, food security and mental health counselling.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

Manitoba (total of $802,096)

Proving the case – peer support reduces harms for people who use drugs that are experiencing homelessness
Main Street Project inc. – Winnipeg, MB
$802,096 over 24 months to provide 24/7 in-person harm reduction and social services in Winnipeg, including wraparound services, peer-led outreach, education, drug testing and system navigation services for hard-to-reach marginalized populations. The funding will enable the organization to provide support to those who inject drugs and are experiencing homelessness, street involved, unstably housed, or otherwise experience a degree of social exclusion and isolation.
Theme: Harm reduction and marginalized populations
Funding Envelope: B2022

Nunavut (total of $172,011)

Using community-driven and process-based research for the development of initiatives that prevent and reduce harmful substance use among youth in the Hamlet of Pangnirtung
Hamlet of Pangnirtung –Pangnirtung, NU
$172,011 over 11 months to help prevent harmful substance use by building capacity in the community’s youth. Based on multi-faceted research, the project will: 1) scan and identify the needs of youths at risk for substance use; and 2) identify activities which reduce the risk of substance use among youth. Through the research, the organization will explore youths’ interests in program options and delivery strategies as well as recommendations to help address the risk of harmful substance use among youth in the community. The project will be guided by a community steering team including Elders, community leaders, and concerned community members and youth.
Theme: Youth
Funding envelope: B2021

Ontario (total of $25,115,928)

A Black-centric Model to Prevent and Treat Problematic Substance Use in Black Youth Impacted by Trauma
Wanasah: Mental Health Services for Black Youth – Toronto, ON
$340,439 over 25 months for their project that will implement a Black-led, Black-centric, trauma-informed model of care to ensure Black youth and their families in Regent Park and surrounding communities in Toronto are engaged and supported by stigma-free and culturally relevant mental health, trauma and substance use programming. A mental health clinician with expertise in substance use will train, coach, and further build the capacity of Wanasah and partner agency staff in prevention, identification of at-risk clients, early intervention, and treatment. Youth workers and health care providers from local agencies will be supported to identify youth and families with substance use issues and refer them to Wanasah services.
Theme: Racially/Culturally marginalized
Funding envelope: B2022

ADHD and Substance Use Peer led support Groups
Centre for ADD/ADHD Awareness, Canada – Toronto, ON
$183,890 over 25 months to develop and provide peer-led support groups across Canada for individuals who have attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and who use substances or have a substance use disorder (SUD). Delivered in a non-clinical environment, the groups will  take place biweekly in five different time zones across the country. They will provide emotional support, mentorship for participants, education about ADHD, as well as strategies to help participants manage some of the main symptoms that have led to substance use. Each group’s facilitators will need to have completed or be in the process of completing, prior to leading a group, a Peer Support Certification course as well as on-line courses on ADHD. The funding will also support the organization in the creation of an advisory committee made up of 5-10 individuals with lived or living experience in ADHD and SUD, medical experts regularly treating ADHD and SUD, and community addiction organizations.
Theme: Peer-Focused
Funding envelope: B2022

Adopting Harm Reduction into Practice: Engaging Community Partners Serving People Experiencing Homelessness, People Who Use Drugs & Decision Makers
Addiction Services Central Ontario – Aurora, Ontario
$692,419 over 24 months to promote a harm reduction policy in approximately 100 local service providers including shelters, housing services, community health centres, clinics and outreach services. This funding will enable the organization to create and develop harm reduction and stigma toolkits. These toolkits will help raise awareness and capacity of front-line staff and management providing services to people who use drugs in the York Region of Ontario. This project will also allow the organization to deliver a range of in-person services and provide harm reduction supplies such as naloxone and drug checking kits. This funding will also allow the organization to expand its online chat to a 24/7 service.
Theme: Substance Use Workforce
Funding Envelope: B2022

Concurrent Disorders Navigator with the Crisis Response Branch  
Hamilton Police Service – Hamilton, ON
$207,561 over 24 months to hire an addiction navigator to provide harm reduction and treatment supports to individuals experiencing homelessness in Hamilton, Ontario. Led by a person with lived experience, the program will focus on navigating addiction and mental health services. Taking a collaborative approach, the Navigator will help integrate all crisis response programs within the Crisis Response Branch of the Hamilton Police. This will help create more consistency and enhance communication when it comes to streamlined care and follow-ups, therefore providing needed support and outreach.
Theme: Community-based
Funding envelope: B2022

Creating a drug checking network using machine learning enabled spectrometers
The University of Western Ontario – London, ON
$1,995,775 over 14 months to enable a drug checking laboratory at Western University and deploy a novel drug checking system to 8-10 supervised consumption sites. The project will support people who use drugs and people who inject drugs, as well as support workers. Policy-makers and substance use researchers will benefit from the drug checking data that will be made publicly available.
Theme: Drug checking
Funding envelope: B2021

Pain Progress – S.O.S SEGCHC
South-East Grey Community Health Center – Markdale, ON
$472,832 over 24 months to expand the existing rural chronic pain and opioid care program for clients with stimulant and opioid use disorders living in Ontario’s Bruce–Grey region. This funding will enable the organization to expand the number of patients being served, going from 50 to 200. This funding will also allow the project to improve access to treatment services, provide referrals to wraparound supports and clinical training for primary care practitioners.
Theme: Pain
Funding Envelope: B2022

Enhancing Treatment for Individuals with Concurrent Substance Use and ADHD Challenges through Education and Multidisciplinary Connection for Front-line Workers
CADDRA – Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance – Toronto, ON
$597,488 over 24 months to develop a bilingual training program for Canadian health professionals that will enhance assessment and support for individuals with concurrent substance use and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The funding will enable the organization to form an advisory committee that will identify current practices and gaps related to the assessment and treatment of people living concurrently with substance use and ADHD. The project will develop a training program with information on the assessment and management of ADHD, problematic substance use, social-cultural considerations, pharmacological management, psychosocial treatments, marginalization and discrimination, and motivational interviewing.
Theme: Substance Use Workforce
Funding Envelope: B2022

Intensive Online Program
Jean Tweed Treatment Centre – Toronto, ON
$805,534 over 24 months to reinstate a 3-week intensive online addictions program for women with substance use issues living in Ontario. This online program will allow women unable to attend in-person treatment to access workshops, group discussion, one-on-one counselling, and at-home practice and activities. Topics include self-esteem, healthy relationships, managing emotions, effective communication, health and wellness, safe coping skills, parenting, grief and loss, as well as trauma. This funding will also enable the organization to create an advisory committee that will help guide the program, provide input to staff, and evaluate the online tool’s performance.
Theme: Online/Virtual   
Funding Envelope: B2022

Linking Peers and Families with Substance Use Services in Couchiching 
Patient/Client & Family Council – Midland, ON
$229,636 over 24 months to pilot a peer support and navigation service for people with mental illness and substance use challenges at the Orillia Soldiers Memorial Hospital Emergency Department in Midland, Ontario. This program will provide one-to-one peer and family support to approximately 650 patients and their families. Mental health crisis workers and the inpatient addictions counsellor will support patients through the program. The program will be available in both official languages.
Theme: Local
Funding Envelope: B2022

Over the Influence 
The Students Commission of Canada – Toronto, ON
$410,075 over 24 months to put together a team of 32 youth leaders to help address the overdose crisis. This team will be trained in intervention and referral to treatment. Over the course of the project this team will advise and support at least 12 adult-led consortiums in how to initiate and sustain youth engagement in opioid/substance use initiatives including social media campaigns and events. This team of youth leaders will also offer consulting services and advice to policy makers.
Theme: Youth, National
Funding Envelope: B2022

Power Over Pain: Implementation of a digital portal that provides Canadians with rapid access to stepped care resources for the management of pain, mental health and substance use across the lifespan
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute – Ottawa, Ontario
$1,254,264 over 16 months is being provided to the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute’s (OHRI) Power over Pain project for the implementation of a digital portal. This portal provides Canadians with rapid access to stepped care resources for the management of pain, mental health and substance use. This project will provide free evidenced-based virtual resources to help youth and adults manage their pain.
Theme: Chronic Pain
Funding Envelope: B2021

Reducing Overdoses by Providing Free Drug Checking and Frequent Updates On Drug Supply
Sanguen Health Centre Foundation – Waterloo, ON
$325,511 over 17 months to provide a drug checking service at the existing Consumption and Treatment Services site in Kitchener, to allow people who use drugs to make more informed decisions on what they are consuming. Peer support workers will build relationships with people who use drugs and encourage use of the drug checking service. Drug checking results will help identify trends in substances and will be used to inform front-line worker practice and educate people who use drugs on strategies for mitigating risks.
Theme: Drug checking
Funding envelope: B2021

S.O.S. First Aid (Surviving Overdoses in Shelters)
Christie/Ossington Neighbourhood Centre – Toronto, ON
$380,845 over 25 months to promote harm reduction services and lower the risks of opioid overdose for residents of four homeless shelters located in the Toronto communities of Landsowne, Bloor, Roncesvalle and Rexdale. Specifically, the project will work with both men and women throughout their stay in shelters and help them as they transition into permanent housing in the community. The funding will enable the organization to develop a wide range of services such as training workshops to shelter staff on self-care, the creation of a substance use advisory committee for all 4 shelters, motivational interviewing and ongoing case management, education on the safe use of harm reduction supplies, weekly peer-facilitated meetings, follow-up support to residents moving, as well as individual and group counselling.
Theme: Community-based
Funding envelope: B2022

The Peer-2-Peer Expansion Program (P2PEP)
Reach Out Chatham-Kent (R.O.C.K.) Missions   Chatham, ON
$710,969 over 26 months to expand peer-led outreach services and establish peer-led harm reduction satellite sites in Chatham-Kent. This will expand upon the current peer-to-peer project that began in November of 2020 which conducts outreach, builds trusting relationships, provides unconditional basic needs services, supports improved access and sustained engagement, and responds to overdoses in the community. This expansion will focus on extending the reach of harm reduction services to rural, remote and marginalized communities in Chatham-Kent through the development and evaluation of ten peer-led, informal, residential harm reduction satellite sites.
Theme: Peer-led outreach
Funding envelope: B2022

The Sherbourne Health Safer Opioid Supply Project (SHSOS)
Sherbourne Health Centre Corporation – Toronto, Ontario
$1,049,329 over 25 months is being provided to deliver safer supply services for 2SLGBTQIA+ people who use drugs and face barriers to safe services in Toronto. This project aims to address a gap in access to culturally specific harm reduction and health services for queer people including harm reduction, acute primary care, and other health and social services. The project includes wrap-around care centered on providing pharmaceutical drugs of known potency and consistency in response to the toxic and unpredictable street supply.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2022

Transformative Training for Trauma Informed Care: How to Better Serve the Health Care Needs of People Who Use Drugs
The Governing Council of the University of Toronto – Toronto, ON
$470,027 over 24 months to develop video case studies that will collect, through interviews, the experiences of people who use drugs and have received emergency room care in hospitals in Ontario. Led by people who use drugs, the conversations will enable the organization to identify existing barriers to health care for people who use drugs in the represented communities of North Cumberland, Peel Region, Brantford/Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Middlesex County/St. Thomas and Northern Ontario. This funding will also allow the organization to carry out interviews with emergency health care professionals.
Theme: Substance Use Workforce
Funding Envelope: B2022

Urban Health and Overdose Prevention Effort: Urban HOPE
Centretown Community Health Centre Inc. – Ottawa, ON
$1,353,365 over 24 months to expand clinical and outreach services at the Centretown Community Health Centre’s existing Urban Health Program. This funding will enable the Urban Health Clinic to open an additional half-day per week and expand clinical and outreach services at the Centretown Community Health Centre’s existing Urban Health Program for individuals who use the toxic street drug supply in downtown Ottawa. This program will provide primary care, mental health and addictions services, harm reduction, case management, care coordination, system navigation, referrals to wraparound services, coaching, counselling and practical support.
Theme: Community-Based
Funding Envelope: B2022

Violence Against Women Shelter Network (VAWN) Harm Reduction Support and Impact Program
Women’s Hostels Incorporated – Toronto, ON
$620,701 over 24 months to increase harm reduction capacity of the VAWN—a network of 14 Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services-funded shelters in the GTA. This funding would help coordinate harm reduction capacity needs assessments and each participating shelter will receive an individualized report with recommendations and operational improvements to deliver harm reduction services. The project will also deliver five harm reduction training sessions with an Indigenous, trauma-informed and gender-based lens for up to 450 shelter workers. The project will also develop a harm reduction nutrition program that will utilize food provision to reduce the harms associated with substance use as part of the continuum of harm reduction.
Theme: Community-based
Funding Envelope: B2022

It Takes A Village: Safer Opioid Supply Through Community
K-W Working Centre for the Unemployed – Kitchener, Ontario
$2,084,892, in addition to the more than $3.5 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to the Working Centre to continue to provide low-barrier access to pharmaceutical opioids in the Kitchener-Waterloo region. This project will continue to expand its safer supply project by embedding it within a number of housing, shelter, and congregate settings. The project is expected to help approximately 200 people, as well as extend wrap-around care.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

National Safer Supply Community of Practice
London InterCommunity Health Centre –London, Ontario
$529,187, in addition to the nearly $1 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to London InterCommunity Health Centre to continue to bring together community health organizations, primary care teams, private practice providers and federally funded safer supply projects across Canada to build expertise in the delivery of safer supply services. This initiative will help increase access to pharmaceutical alternatives to the toxic illegal drug supply and prevent overdoses and help support and build capacity in communities across Canada to provide safer supply services.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

Safer Supply Ottawa
Pathways to Recovery – Ottawa, Ontario
$1,963,047, in addition to the more than $5.7 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to Pathway to Recovery to continue to reach a broader group of people who use drugs by offering medication in more accessible and flexible ways. Pathways to Recovery’s project uses a pharmaceutical alternative to the toxic illegal drug supply, provided as a daily prescribed medication. By working in partnership with Ottawa Inner City Health, Sandy Hill Community Health Center, Somerset West Community Health Centre, Respect Rx Pharmasave, and Recover Care, Pathways to Recovery will continue to expand their services at five sites in Ottawa and provide wrap-around services, including access to nurse practitioners, peer support and counselling.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

Safer Opioids Supply Program
Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre – Toronto, ON
$1,271,636, in addition to the more than $3 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre to continue to help people who are experiencing severe opioid use disorder access pharmaceutical-grade medications and offer a wide range of wraparound services such as social programming, case management, mental health supports, and trauma counselling. The project features a harm reduction drop-in program, offering supports, evidence-based information, supplies, food, and referrals to other service providers.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

Embedding Safer Supply Prescribing in Primary Care Team in a Small Urban Community: Exploring Enablers and Barriers
Peterborough 360 Degree Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic –  Peterborough, ON
$579,253, in addition to the more than $1 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to the Peterborough 360 Degree Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic to continue to support a pilot model led by nurse practitioners. This pilot explores enablers and barriers to building capacity within primary care teams for the prescription of safer supply to people with opioid use living in smaller urban or rural settings. This additional funding will help fast track the project and will increase the number of participants from 25 to 50 individuals.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

Downtown East Collaborative Safer Opioid Supply Program
South Riverdale Community Health Centre –  Toronto, Ontario
$3,118,516, in addition to the more than $6.3 million already received from SUAP, is being provided to South Riverdale Community Health Centre to continue to provide pharmaceutical alternatives and help connect people experiencing opioid use disorder to the broader system of primary and specialist care, addiction and mental health services, and other social supports. In addition, a Mobile Outreach Team will provide SOS services at various hubs involving key partners and stakeholders, in vulnerable communities in Toronto East.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

Substance Use Hub for People Experiencing Homelessness
Inner City Family Health Team – Toronto, ON
$992,114 over 24 Months to develop a substance use hub for people experiencing homelessness. This will be the first Toronto-based safer supply project to support individuals who not only rely on opioids, but also stimulants and alcohol. This project will specifically target individuals who are living in shelters, encampments, and other homeless settings by providing them with a flexible drop-in style clinic. Through this safer supply service model, patients will have access to life-saving drugs, peer support and a team of trained physicians, nurses, and support staff. This project will include participation from people with lived and living experience with substance use to further project development, data collection and evaluation.
Theme: Community-based
Funding Envelope: B2022

Safer Opioid Supply (SOS) Program  
Hamilton Urban Core Community Health Care – Hamilton, Ontario
$2,476,623 over 25 months is being provided to deliver a new safer opioid supply (SOS) program for people in Hamilton, Ontario, with chronic opioid or stimulant use disorders. The program will also support clients seeking medical services, such as wound care, chronic pain services, opioid agonist therapies, withdrawal clinics, residential treatment centres, nutrition, chiropody, and dental clinics. It will also serve as a pathway to social services such as counseling and housing support.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2022