Opening of detox centre delayed
Needed renovations expected to take four to six months
The house needs somewhere between $500,000 and $600,000 in renovations. It will likely start within a month and take four to six months to complete
A 12-bed drug detox and treatment facility that was expected to open by the end of March in Peterborough’s northeast end won’t be open for a while yet. The building needs extensive renovations that have yet to get underway.
Donna Rogers is the executive director of FourCast, the community addiction services agency that will run the programs in the new facility at 24 Paddock Wood, a spacious house owned by the local Canadian Mental Health Association.
Rogers said the house needs somewhere between $500,000 and $600,000 in renovations. It will likely start within a month and take four to six months to complete.
The wait is due to all the usual preliminary work, Rogers said: securing Ontario government funding, obtaining city building permits and getting quotes from contractors, for example.
Rogers also needs to know exactly how much Ontario government funding is coming for the project — both operating and renovation money — before construction can start.
She expects to have those details within a month, she said, if not within a week, and then contractors can be hired.
Rogers acknowledged that it’s a long wait for people looking for help with addictions, but also described it as “a fairly complicated journey” to convert a building.
For years, 24 Paddock Wood had been the location of the CMHA’s Safe Beds program, a non-medical program that allows people a temporary stay in times of crisis.
The Safe Beds program has
moved to a new location near downtown Peterborough.
The idea was to secure 24 Paddock Wood for six detox beds and six residential treatment beds, following an announcement, in May, of $1.1 million in Ontario government funding for a two-year pilot.
The funding announcement was made in Peterborough on May 2 by Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith and Associate Minister for Mental Health and Addictions Michael Tibollo.
However that money wasn’t expected to cover all costs, so Smith asked both city council and Peterborough County council to help.
Each of the two councils then voted to offer $200,000, spread over two years, to get the centre up and running. It also now appears the project will have more government money than anticipated.
On Wednesday after the Ontario budget dropped, Smith said there’s now additional funding allocated for the project — enough to cover that expected shortfall.
“So the city and the county will no longer need to be backstopping that at all,” he said.
However Peterborough County Warden Bonnie Clark said Thursday the county won’t be revoking its help.
She said in an email that county council “remains firm in its support, whether financial or otherwise, for this important residential detox and treatment facility in our community as a part of the continuum of care.”
Meanwhile there appeared to be even further money in the Ontario budget to help this project.
Smith said the funding — meant as operating money for two years — is now “guaranteed for an additional three years.”
“So they’re not in a position where we’re wondering whether or not it (the funding) is going to continue long term. It will continue long term,” Smith said.
He did acknowledge the renovations aren’t happening as fast as hoped, saying that “some of that was tied to a little bit of the uncertainty of the funding itself.”
“But we fully expect to be moving ahead with it,” Smith said. “And I’m looking forward to it opening and having some good results for us.”