u/ChrisPotterPTBO

The atmosphere in the room was celebratory at the launch of HART Hub this week. MPP Dave Smith said, "I wish I could take all the credit for this." with his glasses firmly attached to his forehead as usual.

I’m cautiously hopeful about the new HART Hub here in Peterborough. And I mean cautiously.

Looking at the launch boards, there’s a lot packed into this. Housing, addiction treatment, mental health care, income support, Indigenous supports, paramedics, PRHC, PCHC, CMHA, Fourcast, Elizabeth Fry, City Social Services, and probably a few things I’m forgetting. It’s a long list. But honestly, that’s kind of the point. People don’t end up on the street, or deep in addiction, or bouncing through emergency services because one tiny little thing went wrong. It’s usually a pile-up. Rent gets impossible. Health tanks. Someone loses family support, or never had much to begin with. Trauma sits there untreated. Poverty grinds everything down until even basic decisions become survival decisions. Then we act surprised when handing someone a phone number, or telling them to go across town to another office, doesn’t fix a damn thing.

So yes, I’m glad to see a model that at least seems to understand these pieces are connected. We’ve needed that for a long time.

The part I’ll be watching is whether this becomes a real pathway or just a better-looking chart on a board. We’ve all seen announcements before. We’ve heard “wraparound supports” so many times it almost needs to be retired for a few years. The real question is pretty simple: can someone who’s sleeping in a tent, cycling through shelter, using alone, dealing with mental health issues, or just completely worn down by the system actually get into care through this? Can they get into treatment if they’re ready? Can they move into transitional housing and then into something permanent enough that their life doesn’t collapse the second the program ends? That’s where the truth will show up. Not in the ribbon-cutting. In the follow-through.

I also don’t want to see this used as an excuse to pretend harm reduction isn’t needed anymore. It is. Recovery and harm reduction shouldn’t be treated like rival teams. People can’t get into recovery if they’re dead, and we also can’t call it compassion if we leave people stuck in survival mode forever with no path out. We need both. I know that annoys the people who want a simple slogan, but this crisis isn’t simple and slogans haven’t exactly been knocking it out of the park.

For me, the housing side is the biggest piece. Transitional housing, supportive housing, rent supplements, case management, good. More of that. But if there’s nowhere permanent and affordable for people to go after the transitional stage, the whole system jams up. Then a year from now we’ll be blaming the person again instead of admitting we built a bottleneck and acted like it was a solution.

So no, I’m not celebrating like the job is done. It isn’t. But I’m also not going to dismiss this just because it came with the usual government announcement language. There are good local people attached to this. People who know the work, know the clients, know where the system breaks, and have probably been saying some version of this for years while the rest of us argued over symptoms.

Now we need honest reporting. Not PR. Not selective numbers. Actual results. How many people are getting housed? How many are staying housed? How long are people waiting for support? Where are they getting stuck? What happens when someone relapses? What happens when the next housing step doesn’t exist?

That’s how we’ll know if the HART Hub is changing lives, or just changing the wording around the same old crisis. I want it to work, and I think there’s enough here to be hopeful, but we should keep our eyes wide open while we’re hoping.

I have a buddy in the city for a visit and we were talking about grabbing dinner. The idea of getting a corned beef sandwich came up. Where should I be taking him?

Because this is Reddit, I’ll just get ahead of the "greatest hits" before they show up.

No, Pride is not about special rights.
No, it is not about forcing anything on anyone.
And no, someone else being able to live as themselves is not an attack on you.

Pride exists because 2SLGBTQI+ people have spent generations being told to hide. They lost jobs, families, housing, safety, dignity, and sometimes their lives, simply because they were honest about who they were and who they loved.

It's not ancient history.

The modern Pride movement came out of resistance. Stonewall in 1969 was a response to police raids and harassment. The first Pride march was the next year. It was people stepping into the street and saying they were done disappearing to make other people comfortable.

Canada has its own ugly history too. During the LGBT Purge, 2SLGBTQI+ Canadians were investigated, harassed, and fired from the public service, the military, and the RCMP. That went on for decades, right into the 1990s. Plenty of people who lived through that are still here.

One of my first jobs in Toronto was stage managing at a drag bar, working for the indomitable Rusty Ryan. If you watched Kids in the Hall, she is the drag queen in the opening credits.

Rusty showed me the scars across her scalp from police batons smashing her skull during the Toronto bathhouse raids, when 2SLGBTQI+ people were targeted simply because those spaces were where they gathered, found community, and could be themselves.

It was only a few months ago that I found out I had an even older connection to Rusty. Her brother, Dennis Timbrell, was the MPP for Don Mills from 1971 to 1987, which is where I grew up. He was also the politician who helped my mother fight the school board when every other door had been shut in her face. Dennis was a member of what used to be the "Progressive Conservatives"

So when people ask, “Why do we still need Pride?” that is part of the answer.

We still need it because people are still rejected by their families. Kids still grow up hearing adults talk about them like they are broken or dangerous. Trans people are still being used as political punching bags. Queer couples still have to think about whether it is safe to hold hands in public. And every June, a whole bunch of people who claim they “don’t care what anyone does” suddenly seem to care very, very much.

I’ve also been a volunteer with Stand In Pride since its inception. For anyone who does not know it, Stand In Pride connects 2SLGBTQI+ people with chosen family, friends, and allies. Sometimes that means having someone to talk to. Sometimes it means having someone show up at a wedding, graduation, holiday, or other important moment when someone’s own family refuses to be there.
Home - Stand In Pride

That isn't politics. It's basic human decency.

So Happy Pride to everyone celebrating, healing, surviving, coming out, staying safe, or still figuring out where they fit.

You belong.

And to the bullies, nobody is asking you to understand every life you have not lived. But maybe stop making life harder for people who already had to fight just to be themselves.

I am running for city council for Otonabee Ward 1. For anyone so inclined to come out to support the event, it's on June 6th at Gordon Best. Not just a launch, not just a few speeches. A full night of entertainment and art. Pay what you can or want to.

See Art - Hear Art - Feel Art - The Intersection of Art and Politics Tickets, Saturday, June 6  •  5:30 PM - 11:30 PM | Eventbrite