Downtown bus for addictions and mental health to launch this spring

Sault Ste. Marie City Council will be briefed Monday on a new community outreach aimed at mental health and addiction issues downtown.

Eric Landriault, director of integrated care at Algoma Ontario Health Team will be there, together with Luke Dufour and Mike Nadeau from Social Services, Lisa Case from Sault Area Hospital and Annette Katajamaki from Canadian Mental Health Association, to talk about a new community wellness bus to be launched this spring.

The bus will be staffed by a registered nurse or other registered health professional, a registered mental health and addiction services worker, and a peer worker.

Objectives of the community wellness bus are:

• to provide outreach services to meet community members where they are at
• to deliver culturally sensitive care and be a pathway for individuals to access health and social services
• to improve community safety with an added presence and community engagement
• to rebuild trust with the community and enhance wellbeing

Landriault's speaking notes for Monday indicate that the rate of hospitalization due to mental health and addictions in downtown Sault Ste. Marie is 554 per 100,000 residents.

That compares to a provincial rate of just 184 per 100,000 residents, Landriault will tell councillors.

The difference is attributed to our higher rates of self-harm, drug toxicity and opioid toxicity.

The new mobile outreach is intended to be proactive, allowing for earlier interventions and ongoing presence downtown.

It will be based on a model that's less medicalized and more community-based, integrating health and social factors.

Meanwhile, the following resolution will be introduced Monday by Ward 2 Couns Luke Dufour and Lisa Vezeau-Allen:

Whereas the Province of Ontario possesses the exclusive constitutional mandate to deliver healthcare services to the residents of Sault Ste. Marie through the Sault Area Hospital and other provincially funded agencies; and

Whereas those provincially mandated services in Sault Ste. Marie have been reduced with the closure of our detox facility, without any announcement of other residential treatment options/facility; and

Whereas the municipally managed Neighbourhood Resource Centre was closed due to the pandemic and issues with the facility;

And whereas citizens of Sault Ste. Marie have died and continue to die due to the mental health and addiction crisis, which is becoming significantly more severe; and

Whereas the City of Sault Ste. Marie and its community partners have called on the provincial government for years to properly fund mental health, addiction, withdrawal and recovery services in our community;

Now therefore be it resolved that as a new, expanded Neighbourhood Resource Centre is being brought back to the community, as the District of Sault Ste. Marie Social Services Administration Board is making a significant investment in the quality of our shelter system, that the Province of Ontario be called upon to immediately fully fund a residential treatment facility to adequately respond to and address the mental health and addiction crisis in Sault Ste. Marie.

Monday's City Council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.