Hamilton hospitals, drop-in centre partner to offer warm space for patients with nowhere to go

On cold nights, it's hard to find safe places to discharge unhoused patients, Hamilton emergency-department doctors say.

But thanks to a new partnership with downtown drop-in centre The Hub, local hospital networks have a reliable place to send people who have nowhere else to go.

Patients who don't need to remain in hospital are commonly released with instructions for followup care, Dr. Erich Hanel, interim chief of emergency medicine at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, said in an interview. 

"That's a real problem when people have nowhere to go or they have no ways to access resources," Hanel said.

On dangerously cold nights, discharge may be impossible. 

"We can't discharge someone to an unsafe environment in any case, and extreme cold is no different," he said.

In some cases, unhoused people stay overnight in emergency departments, said Dr. Alim Pardhan, chief of emergency medicine at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS).

"We were getting pretty worried in the last few weeks" about not being able to find shelters since hospital emergency departments are not well suited to serve as shelters, he added. 

The pilot program — between St. Joe's, HHS and The Hub — helps patients experiencing homelessness and frees up emergency department resources, thereby benefiting the whole community, Hanel said.

Often, "overworked" nurses would have to figure out where unhoused patients could go, he added. While nurses and hospital social workers can call shelters, they can't guarantee spaces or that a patient would be admitted.

The new pilot, which the hospital networks say has helped at least 40 people since it launched just before Christmas, dedicates The Hub spaces to people referred from hospital visits. The drop-in centre on Vine Street is open seven days a week from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. regardless of temperature. It's known to be a low-barrier site, meaning people who can't go to shelters due to restrictions on drug use, for example, may still be welcome. 

"This new pilot partnership is a vital lifeline to our unhoused community, who are already facing so many challenges," Jen Bonner, The Hub's executive director, said in a joint news release with the hospital networks.

A hospital spokesperson told CBC Hamilton that the pilot is being funded through the end of March.

The Hub's staff are outreach workers, students enrolled in health-care programs such as nursing and people training to be police officers.