Renovations start at new Cambridge addiction treatment centre

Renovations begin Tuesday on a $3 million dollar addictions treatment centre in Cambridge, which will replace an existing facility in Waterloo run by House of Friendship.

"We've come a long way with addictions treatment in the community," executive director John Neufeld told CBC K-W. "So we need to improve both the spaces and the quality of care that we provide."

• $300K for housing with on-site mental health, addictions support in Waterloo region
• House of Friendship to provide addiction and counselling services

House of Friendship is taking the old women's shelter at 562 Concession Road, restoring it and adding a second floor. When finished, it will house a 15 bed residential treatment program plus day programs and one-on-one counselling services.

Initially, the organization only planned to renovate the existing structure, but Neufeld said those plans changed in early 2018.

Response to opioidcrisis

"When we purchased the building and started planning, the opioid crisis wasn't front page news," he said.

"When we had those original plans and looked at it, we said, 'You know what, we're going to be full immediately and we're not going to have any ability to innovate or add new programming for the future.'"

That's when Neufeld said they decided to do something "risky" and add the second floor to the existing structure, which also added an extra $1 million to the cost of the project.

House of Friendship has already raised the $2 million needed to renovate the one-storey building and Neufeld hopes to raise the extra money through social impact investing.

A social impact investment is a loan from a socially-minded investor, which comes at a low interest rate.

Neufeld said House of Friendship is working on the paperwork that would start that investment process.