Barrie’s first women-only treatment centre for substance abuse to open next week

Women in the Barrie area who struggle with an alcohol or drug addiction will have more options for treatment with the opening of the region's first women-only treatment centre.

Women in the Barrie area who struggle with an alcohol or drug addiction will have more options for treatment with the opening of the region’s first women-only treatment centre.

Starting next week, Cornerstone to Recovery, a non-profit that helps people battling addiction, will be opening its first women-only treatment centre in the Barrie area.

Cornerstone’s director of women’s residential programs, Lori-Ann Seward, said when Barrie’s outgoing mayor, Jeff Lehman and Ward 6 Coun. Natalie Harris, first approached them to expand to the Barrie area, they saw it as an opportunity to open their first women’s facility.

“In Ontario, one-third of the residential treatment beds are reserved for women, so right off the bat, there’s less access to treatment,” Seward said.

“It’s no surprise Barrie is specifically renowned in Ontario for its problems with human trafficking in the sex trade, and women face different barriers than men do. So economically and financially, they face more challenges than men do, as well as there are issues of domestic abuse.”

The new downtown facility has 10 beds for residents and three transition rooms with a kitchen and common room.

The facility will give clients staying there access to a 90-day residential treatment program.

“The opioid crisis that we talk about didn’t surface yesterday. It’s definitely become more than a crisis, and so the need to start saving lives is in more dire need than ever before,” Seward said.