After a series of consultations, committee members and planners now have a better understanding of what residents would like to see in regard to Sarnia-Lambton’s future community addictions hub.
The centre, which will be located adjacent to Bluewater Health’s Russell Street building, will include a 24-bed facility.
Chief of Communications and Public Affairs Keith Marnoch said there were many suggestions to make the space a non-clinical environment.
"Looking to try to make the space that we're developing colourful and bright, [with] lots of open space, open windows, perhaps even gardens or other amenities that just make it less of a clinic space and try to create a welcoming environment for people to operate in," he said.
In terms of programming, Marnoch said they heard from those with lived experiences and other community groups about what the needs are.
"We were talking specifically about offering life skills, mentoring, coping strategies, legal aid, how to support the clients' families, even employment assistance, and housing guidance," he said. "There are so many elements that we could help with and we need to understand what people's needs are and then figure out what we can actually offer back to them."
An online survey was also available in September and it received just under 200 responses.
Marnoch said the feedback will be compiled into a report and later shared publicly through the hospital.
"The feedback specifically around the architectural plans and the programming will be shared with our architectural team and our team internally that would provide the future programming," he said. "We anticipate that the feedback towards the architectural plans, we'll have a better sense of what the space is going to look like probably in the coming months."
The community addictions hub project is expected to take two to three years to complete.
