With the closure of Peterborough’s Consumption and Treatment Site (CTS) looming, community leaders are voicing their concerns about the potential impacts on service users and the community at large.

“From a service user perspective, you are removing a very important place where they start the foundations of making change to recovery,” said Donna Rogers, executive director of Four Counties Addiction Services Team (Fourcast), in a recent interview with kawarthaNOW.

On March 16, the Ontario government announced it would end funding for seven CTS site in communities that now have a provincially funded Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub, including Peterborough, with a “90-day wind-down period … to give clients time to transition to the support provided by their local HART Hub.”

Closure a result of provincial policy shift away from supervised consumption and harm reduction to treatment and recovery

The decision to close Peterborough’s CTS comes almost two years after the Ontario government’s August 2024 “safer communities” announcement of a policy shift to restrict harm reduction sites and make addiction treatment a priority, banning supervised drug consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and child care centres.

The announcement resulted in the closure of nine provincially funded CTS sites, including four in Toronto as well as sites in Guelph, Hamilton, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, and Kitchener-Waterloo.

At the same time, the provincial government announced a $378 million investment, later increased to almost $500 million, for new HART Hubs focused on treatment, recovery, and housing, and issued a province-wide call for proposals, encouraging the nine closed CTS sites to submit proposals to transition to HART Hubs.

In January 2025, the province announced the nine closed drug injection sites would be transitioned to HART Hubs and also announced additional HART Hubs would be created, including one in Peterborough, ultimately resulting in 28 across Ontario.

A response to the opioid crisis, the Peterborough CTS opened in June 2022 in the former bus terminal at 220 Simcoe Street in downtown Peterborough to provide a safe and medically supported space for people to consume pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of health professionals.

People using the CTS are provided with sterile injection supplies, education on safer consumption practices, drug checking, basic medical services, and referrals to addiction treatment services, housing, and other social services.

Rogers explained that such sites were funded to provide the singular function of offering a safe space and clean supplies for the use of personal illicit drugs.

“We weren’t a drop-in spot, you couldn’t loiter around, and you couldn’t have tents,” she said.

Lack of supervised consumption expected to increase emergency calls and public drug use

Following the closure of the first nine CTS sites, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition tracked calls made to emergency services and visits to the emergency department for opioid-related overdoses.

A release from the Coalition says “Ontario-wide data shows a sharp increase in EMS calls (+69.5%) and emergency department use (+67%).”

Rogers said this data is worrying and representative of the importance of supervised consumption in the healthcare and recovery continuum. For her, it is clear people will continue to need the services provided at the CTS, but the closure will leave them with nowhere to go.

“These uses will happen somewhere else,” said Rogers of the approximate 300 uses per month supervised at the Peterborough CTS.

Furthermore, Fourcast works in partnership with paramedic and emergency medical services to function as an alternate drop-off location for individuals experiencing drug-related medical complications — a service that will also no longer be available when the CTS is closed.

The Ontario government cited concerns about public safety around CTS locations as a primary reason for the closures. However, for Rogers, the real concerns around safety will come after the CTS is closed and a gap in services has been created.

In particular, she said that when the Peterborough CTS is closed, even temporarily, the immediate surrounding area feels the impact.

“If we closed for an hour or two we would notify the library,” said Rogers, referring to the main branch of the Peterborough Public Library, which is located half a block south of the CTS.

Prior to the opening of the CTS, drug-related emergencies were a common occurrence in and around the library. In a report presented to the library board on May 12, library director and CEO Melissa Reddenit noted the library is preparing for the closure of the CTS with several steps related to safety and security.

Rogers also foresees the closure impacting police response and public works as people continue to use, although now in public spaces.

Further, Rogers said a major impact of the CTS closures will be increased costs for municipal policing and public services “downloaded” from the province.

“This is going to be a costly decision on the city,” said Rogers.

HART Hubs do not offer safer supply, supervised drug consumption, or needle exchange programs

Following the closure of the CTS, Fourcast will begin the operation of Peterborough’s provincially funded HART Hub. Peterborough is one of 28 communities approved for HART Hub funding, having secured $6.3 million through a joint proposal between Fourcast and the City of Peterborough.

In its March 16 announcement of the latest CTS closures, the province stated the goal of HART Hubs was to “fund treatment and lasting recovery from addiction, rather than continued public funding of drug injection sites.”

“It’s a philosophical shift — it’s doing diametrically different things,” said Rogers of the HART Hub system.

Like all HART Hubs, the Peterborough hub will not offer safer supply, supervised drug consumption, or needle exchange programs. Eligible activities under HART Hub funding include, but are not limited to, primary care, mental health and addictions services, supportive housing, case management, and drop-in services.

“The HART Hubs are all different,” explained Rogers.

Rogers told kawarthaNOW the Peterborough HART Hub will focus its efforts on providing healthcare and housing supports to residents at the modular bridge housing community on Wolfe Street.

Owned and funded by the City of Peterborough and operated in partnership with the Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough (EFry), it consists of 50 modular housing units with 24/7 onsite support for individuals with complex needs that cannot be met at low-barrier overnight shelters.

“The people on Wolfe Street can’t stay at the shelter because they have service restrictions,” said Rogers.

Focus of Peterborough’s HART Hub will be healthcare and traditional and supportive housing

When assessing how to use the $6.3 million investment for Peterborough’s HART Hub, Fourcast and community partners established that their focus should be to establish “long term stable housing, with the appropriate supports, for the people who are the most complex in our community.”

Rogers explained that individuals experiencing chronic homelessness are more likely to have complex physical and mental health needs due to a lack of access to healthcare, ultimately making finding and maintaining housing an ongoing challenge.

“They are some of the most complex healthcare patients you could ever imagine,” said Rogers.

To address the barriers faced by Wolfe Street residents, the Peterborough HART Hub will develop a healthcare team to work in partnership with the existing EFry frontline staff.

In addition to the onsite health team, the HART Hub will operate 50 units of transitional housing for residents moving out of Wolfe Street housing, a further six spaces in supportive housing hosted by the Canadian Mental Health Association – Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (CMHA HKPR) for individuals with acquired brain injuries or a dual diagnosis including developmental disorders, and finally, a six-month “sober living” program for people who are unhoused when entering addictions treatment.

Fourcast is also working in collaboration with One City Peterborough to use newly built, single-occupant additional rental units (ARUs) as transitional housing units for individuals with complex needs requiring ongoing support.

Recognizing that other municipalities have elected to develop drop-in programs and homelessness response hubs, Rogers said the existence of the Trinity Community Centre operated by One City has allowed Fourcast to take a more targeted approach.

“We already have a homelessness response hub,” said Rogers. “This allowed us to take a laser focus on housing and housing stability.”

Despite optimism about the positive impact of the HART Hub, Rogers said it should not be seen as a replacement for the services provided by the CTS.

“There’s a discussion that it’s a direct trade off, but it certainly is not,” she said.

One City Peterborough held an event called “Opening Doors” on Tuesday evening (May 12) at Knights of Columbus Hall to discuss the non-profit organization’s housing strategy and how it is working to address homelessness in the community, including by developing additional rental units (ARUs).

The event was attended by volunteers, donors, supporters, partners, and other community members, including several mayoralty and councillor candidates in this fall’s municipal election.

One City has been involved in the management and purchasing of residential properties since the organization was established in 2019 following the merger of Warming Room Community Ministries and Peterborough Reintegration Services.

“Non-profits purchasing housing made so much sense,” Tammy Kuehne, acting executive director of One City, told the crowd when speaking about early property acquisition and the role of private donors in securing housing and funding to operate programming.

Working with Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes to develop additional rental units

Over the past six years, One City has been successful in purchasing a property, either a house or a church, every year. The charity currently owns eight residential properties and partners with local landlords to support a total of 51 spaces for transitional living.

It is on these properties that One City has begun the development of ARUs to increase available rental stock. The charity works in collaboration with Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes (PATH), which acts as the lead project management and construction team.

ARUs are defined within the City of Peterborough as a “self-contained residential unit with a private kitchen, bathroom facilities, and sleeping areas within dwellings or within structures ancillary to a dwelling.” This can include basement apartments and so-called in-law suites as well as independent structures.

To date, this program has one fully completed and two nearly completed ARUs built on One City properties — including a backyard “tiny house” and a self-contained basement apartment in the main building — and the organization is already seeing success for the program.

Janice Hoskins, a volunteer coordinator for the recently renovated property, told kawarthaNOW she became involved with One City because “It makes me feel like I am not alone in my concerns.”

“I feel very passionately about people being precariously housed and unhoused,” she said. “I was looking for an organization that would address the problem head on.”

‘Dignity and autonomy are a really important part of housing stabilization’

One City built its first ARU at The Erin Sullivan House on Monaghan Road, named after the late long-term One City and One Roof volunteer who passed away in 2022 at the age of 43 of cystic fibrosis. The ARU has been named “Erin’s Tiny Home” in her honour.

A main focus of ARU development for One City is the opportunity to provide single-occupancy dwellings in addition to their existing congregate living houses.

Elisa Zeus, housing coordinator at One City, told kawarthaNOW the charity needs “a really large continuum of housing,” including options for people who need to live on their own.

Kuehne explained that for individuals transitioning out of homelessness, being able to live alone provides dignity and autonomy as well as the opportunity to really begin making positive change in their lives.

Reading a message from the tenant at Erin’s Tiny Home, Kuehne shared how the ARU allowed this person to host their family, keep regular routines, and focus on their mental health.

“Dignity and autonomy are a really important part of housing stabilization,” said Zeus of the long-term impact of single-occupancy dwellings.

Purchase of Stewart Street home with United Way support will add two new ARUs, including an accessible one

On April 15, One City closed on the purchase of a home on Stewart Street for which they already have the support of the City of Peterborough to develop two ARUs.

This purchase was made possible by funding through the Reaching Home program coordinated by the United Way Peterborough & District.

“They not only kept the piece of property out of the (private rental) market, but it kept those folks in their homes and adds new units,” said Rhonda Gilchrist, senior director of operations and revenue generation at the United Way.

The Reaching Home program, which receives its funding from the Government of Canada, supports projects that align with the goals of the federal government’s national homelessness and housing strategies.

Gilchrist said that, during a comprehensive community needs assessment in fall 2025, the United Way found that the most significant issue in Peterborough was the lack of available units and overall low housing stock.

Michael VanDerHerberg, director of property development at One City, said One City will begin building two new units on the Stewart Street property in June, with one of the units accessible to meet the complex needs of the unhoused community.

“ARUs allow us to build accessibility into the design and let residents age at home with us,” Zeus added.

Looking ahead: developing more ARUs and purpose-built supportive housing

Looking ahead, One City is working to acquire new properties across Peterborough and develop additional ARUs.

“The housing acquisitions and builds we have done so far have demonstrated to us so clearly that purchasing and protecting housing so that it remains affordable, supportive, and safe is the right way forward,” Kuehne told kawarthaNOW.

One City is currently fundraising to purchase a residential property at 705 Sherbrooke Street owned by the City of Peterborough.

On April 13, Peterborough city council unanimously voted to sell the property to One City for $410,000 and provide the charity with a vendor take-back mortgage of $200,000, which would be fully forgivable at the end of its 20-year term.

VanDerHerberg told event attendees that One City still needs to raise a further $155,000 from the community to close on the property this summer.

“We want to capture a moment in time where momentum is building,” he said. “We’re leaning into this and we hope you lean into it with us.”

One City is also seeking funding to purchase a house on Dublin Street, which has space to develop four ARUs. This would be the organization’s largest development to add new units to the Peterborough rental market.

On their website, One City indicates that its housing programs “remove housing from the private market” and treat housing as a right and not a commodity.

In addition to purchasing existing residential properties, One City will also be seeking larger lots to build multi-unit developments.

With May 12 marking the last day of One City’s outreach programs for unsheltered people due to a lack of funding, the charity spoke to refocusing their work on providing transitional housing in addition to offering overnight shelter and drop-in services at Trinity Community Centre, located in the former Trinity United Church on Reid Street.

That’s where One City operates a daytime drop-in program and an overnight shelter program, with both programs funded through a three-year service agreement with the City of Peterborough.

VanDerHerberg said that there are also early plans to renovate Trinity to include three floors of purpose-built supportive housing, offering a total 15 to 20 units, noting this is a long-term goal over the next five to 10 years.

“Our goal is to strengthen our infrastructure, skills, and capacity for when those opportunities come,” Kuehne added.

For more information about One City Peterborough and to donate, visit www.onecityptbo.ca.

The Peterborough Community Health Centre (PCHC) in downtown Peterborough has a washer and dryer and a new community kitchen that will enhance care for marginalized communities, thanks to a $30,000 donation from a local construction company.

The donation from MCI Constructors Inc. (previously Mortlock Construction Inc.) funded the purchase and installation of the washer and dryer along with the full outfitting of the kitchen, both of which will allow the PCHC to address immediate client needs as well as improve the centre’s ability to provide wraparound community-based care.

The PCHC’s mandate is to serve people who do not have a primary care provider and experience barriers related to social, economic, cultural, or systemic factors, including people who are experiencing homelessness, people who self-identify as Indigenous, are from racialized groups or communities, have physical or mental disabilities, identify as part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, or are newcomers such as immigrants and refugees.

“This gift is about supporting the people and services that make our community stronger,” said MCI Constructors Inc. co-owner Craig and Ashley Mortlock in a media release.

“The PCHC provides essential care to so many individuals and families, and we wanted our contribution to reflect our values and our long-standing commitment to the community we live and work in.”

According to PCHC, having on-site laundry services better supports clients who are unhoused or experiencing housing instability by providing clean clothing and managing essential laundry needs directly within the centre.

The PCHC says the new community kitchen expands opportunities to improve health outcomes through food-based supports. Not only will it ensure clients who arrive hungry receive nourishing meals, but the kitchen will be used for nutrition education and food literacy programming and support partnerships focused on food security.

The community kitchen could also support expanded food access initiatives, including daily meals, food cupboards, and culturally relevant nutrition supports.

“We’re deeply grateful to MCI Constructors,” said PCHC executive director Ashley Safar. “Their support of kitchen and laundry appliances at the PCHC helps us extend patient care beyond the exam room into food, wellness, and community connection.”

While the PCHC’s core healthcare services are supported through Ontario Health, donations enable the centre to respond to additional client needs that contribute to their health, dignity, and wellbeing.

The PCHC is continuing to seek community support for additional priorities, including Indigenous wellness initiatives such as traditional healing and plant medicine, expansion of its 2SLGBTQIA+ informed care program, and emergency supports to help clients meet urgent needs such as transportation, food, or replacing identification.

To learn more about supporting the PCHC or to make a donation, email Brooke Erickson at brooke.erickson@ptbochc.ca.

kawarthaNOW.com is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2026.

That’s 30 years of locally owned digital media, 30 years of responding to unpredictable obstacles, and 30 years of community events, breaking news, event listings, and reporting across five counties. And, behind it all, 30 years of determination and impact from a woman who went against the grain to become one of the first female digital publishers in Canada.

The story of kawarthaNOW began during the Christmas holidays in 1995, when founder, CEO, and publisher Jeannine Taylor — then a magazine editor for three local print publications — surfed the internet for the very first time.

Peterborough had just gotten connected and, after a few attempts, Jeannine finally got online and spent days on what was then called the “information superhighway” — “I was single at the time,” she jokes.

“I knew this was a new emerging medium that was going to change everything, from how we communicate to how we promote,” she says.

The Peterborough native encouraged her print publisher to get ahead of the times, though he couldn’t see into future like Jeannine could, so she quit her job and just five months later on May 1, 1996, with the help of her former business partner Michael Young, launched Quid Novis, an “e-zine” focused on local community information and events. The following year, she acquired the domain name quidnovis.com for the website.

One of only a handful of local websites at the time, it saw 10,000 visits in its very first week — a very impressive achievement in 1996 when less than 20 per cent of Canadians were online. Jeannine garnered much media attention, and even travelled to Toronto to be featured on CBC Radio.

Despite the website’s popularity, Jeannine says it was a challenge to monetize it, as many businesses were still firmly entrenched in the world of print advertising and saw the internet as a passing fad.

“We were way ahead of our time because there were few websites, so no one understood the need to advertise,” Jeannine says. “It was difficult to make the connection of what a print ad was to its online equivalent. We take it for granted now because we see banner ads everywhere.”

Local businesses and organizations, however, began seeking out Jeannine for her guidance in website development and internet marketing. So she launched Quid Novis Internet Productions, a website development and hosting company, while continuing to maintain quidnovis.com as a free community service.

By this time, the internet had proven to be transformative not just on Jeannine’s professional life, but also in her personal life, as she met her partner Bruce Head on match.com on May 31 the same month Quid Novis launched.

Since then, he has been by her side, both in business and life, and is currently kawarthaNOW’s managing editor.

Perhaps Bruce was one of few people who saw Jeannine’s vision of the internet in those early days. It was not easy to get a bank account or insurance for an internet business, and even more challenging if you were a female entrepreneur attempting to secure financing.

“It was a group of men around the boardroom table who didn’t even want to talk to me about what the business was,” Jeannine says. “One of them asked me where the men were who were involved in the business.”

Fortunately, she had no problem ignoring the men, and continued to build the business on her own.

Over the next 16 years, Quid Novis Internet Productions developed hundreds of websites for small to large companies and organizations as well as different levels of government, winning multiple awards in the process. In 2003, Jeannine earned a Premier’s Award nomination and, two years later, was named Business Woman of the Year by the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce.

With the rise of social media in the aughts, Jeannine saw the opportunity to revisit the community website she first created in 1996, envisioning it as a digital media company. Quidnovis.com was rebranded as kawarthaNOW.com and launched in 2009 as the online publication you know today, generating revenue through digital advertising and locally focused branded editorial.

“It still holds true today that a subscription model or a paywall model was never a viable option for us,” Jeannine says, noting she has a policy that as long as she owns the company, there will never be a registration requirement or paywall. “I think that information has to be freely available on the internet and monetization needs to be approached strategically and with an entrepreneurship lens.”

It was with that entrepreneurship lens that Jeannine was in the process of developing an innovative “choose local” campaign in early 2020 when the pandemic hit and changed everything.

kawarthaNOW became an in-demand source for community news and updates about the pandemic and website traffic tripled from 25,000 to over 70,000 regular readers (and, better yet, that traffic stuck after the pandemic).

But it wasn’t just important news that kawarthaNOW delivered during the pandemic. In kawarthaNOW’s weekly VIP e-news, Jeannine took it upon herself to offer messages of hope, resilience, and support among all the uncertainty.

Every week for one year, Jeannine began the e-newsletter with a famous quote and a punchy or inspiring message for readers.

Inclusive of her own anecdotes, feelings, and observations, Jeannine’s messages explored everything from the strength of front-line workers to the turmoil of lockdowns, the importance of self-care, the “new normal,” the rise of anti-racist movements in response to U.S. protests, and so much more.

“It really changed depending on what people were feeling that week because we were all on a roller coaster,” Jeannine says. “Every week, I tried to gauge where people were at.”

It’s initiatives like this that make local independent media something that people can count on. Over the years, kawarthaNOW has adopted other traditions that gives it a personal edge over the competition — the annual cheeky April Fool’s Day story crafted by Bruce, for example, or the annual year-end summary of the most impactful stories.

With distrust in mainstream media continuing to rise, Jeannine says, local independent media is needed more than ever. Many readers tell her they only follow specific news sources, and local independent news is often at the top of the list.

“People have select choices, but in every case they do trust local media,” she says. “I think it’s because, whether it’s us or someone else, they know the people in the community. I don’t think the need for local media is going away anytime soon.”

When the federal government passed the Online News Act in June 2023 and Meta blocked access to news for Canadians on its social media sites, kawarthaNOW faced what Jeannine says was a “much bigger pivot than the pandemic.”

Suddenly, more than 50,000 followers could no longer see kawarthaNOW’s posts on Facebook and Instagram.

“It was policy that was developed because print media lobbied heavily for it,” Jeannine says. “Our readers were frustrated and concerned about losing access to local news.”

In response, kawarthaNOW.com launched its daily e-news delivered straight to the inboxes of thousands of readers’ inboxes, which maintains a 70 per cent open rate, and launched the Kawartha Now Community Facebook group, which has now gained over 8,500 members.

Through all the ups and downs over the past 30 years, kawarthaNOW has continued to deliver quality in reporting breaking news, advertising, sharing community stories, and curating upwards of 800 local events at any given time.

Jeannine and Bruce did not even miss a day of publication during lengthy weather-related power outages in recent years, because it was during these times that the community needed local media more than ever.

The publication has always worked to serve the community, as evident when Jeannine developed the “Know Your Locals” branded editorial series as an affordable way for small businesses to advertise. It’s still being offered at the introductory rate two years later.

Additionally, kawarthaNOW donates upwards of $200,000 to the community annually through in-kind donations of time, advertising, and sponsorship of non-profits, focusing on arts and environmental initiatives and advocacy for vital women’s and social programs and organizations.

As a female founder who has shattered glass ceilings, Jeannine aims to inspire and mentor female entrepreneurs — reminding them not to listen to those men in the boardroom.

“I think that being a female publisher means going up against the patriarchy every day,” she says. “I was alone in that boardroom with all those men and I didn’t ever have a female mentor to help. So that’s my soft spot, and I try to connect with women who are in the early stages of their business and need support.”

That generosity is one of the reasons Jeannine has earned numerous awards and accolades over the years.

They include a City of Peterborough Civic Award for chairing the development of Millennium Park, an inaugural Peterborough-Kawartha Women’s Leadership Award organized by Maryam Monsef in 2018, inductions into the Peterborough & District Pathway of Fame in 2023 and the Peterborough Business Hall of Fame in 2024, and the inaugural Legacy award of the Luminary Awards for women in business in 2025.

Despite all the challenges facing the media industry, Jeannine remains committed to kawarthaNOW’s mission of keeping residents informed.

“This is not a high-profit-margin industry, but it’s okay because we’re doing what we want to do,” Jeannine says. “We’re serving the community. We’re keeping people employed and doing what they want to do. Those are all good things.”

Jeannine always says recruitment is her superpower, pointing to Bruce as an exceptional editor who, as someone who also reports on those often painfully long city council meetings, doesn’t sleep any more than Jeannine does.

Long-time writer Paul Rellinger is also a testament to that, given that he has chosen to spend the past 10 years bringing his decades of award-winning journalism experience to kawarthaNOW.

And yet, Jeannine also makes space for writers like me, when I was fresh out of school and just beginning a career in an intimidating industry.

“Our biggest strength is that there’s trust but also the quality is there,” Jeannine says. “I love marketing, and I know that we can help people with marketing. People tell us that works.”

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, kawarthaNOW will be launching a promotion to recognize long-term partners throughout the year.

“We’re marking 30 years this year by putting together a limited set of anniversary features and campaigns that highlight local businesses alongside that milestone,” says Jeannine. “It will be a nice opportunity for our advertisers to tell a bigger story and get some longer-term visibility.”