The Ontario government said Thursday nine existing supervised drug consumption sites throughout the province have been approved to transition into new “homelessness and addiction recovery hubs.”

The facilities, which the province is calling HART hubs, are part of the Progressive Conservative government’s marked shift away from harm reduction policies and toward a focus on addictions treatment and recovery.

The nine locations — including four in Toronto and one each in Ottawa, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Guelph — faced closure as a result of fast-tracked legislation that prohibits and closes any sites within 200 metres of a school or daycare, and effectively stops any new sites from opening.

Supervised consumption sites impacted by the bill were given an option to apply to become HART hubs, and the nine facilities approved by the province will transition to the new model of care by March 31, the date they were slated to shut down.

A 10th location forced to close by the new law, in Toronto’s Kensington Market, was not mentioned in a news release issued by the province on Thursday.

Minister of Health Sylvia Jones has said the government plans to open 19 of the treatment hubs and 375 highly supportive housing units at a planned cost of $378 million. The hubs will not provide a safe supply of illicit drugs, supervised consumption services or needle exchange programs.

Applications for the remaining 10 hubs are under review and will be announced in the coming weeks, the province said in the release, adding the goal is to have the facilities up and running by April 1.

Harm reduction advocates have condemned the move to shutter supervised consumption sites, saying it will put lives at risk and only move drug use into public spaces. More than 2,600 Ontarians died in 2023 due to overdoses, the vast majority due to opioid toxicity.

In a November report, Ontario’s auditor general found in 2022-23 more than 1,600 overdoses were reversed at the sites targeted in the legislation. Not a single person died of an overdose at those spots during the same time frame, the report added.

That same report concluded the health ministry did not provide a thorough, evidence-based business case for the hub model and did not provide proper impact analysis or do proper consultations with all affected people.

“The ministry has not developed plans to mitigate the risks prior to making the decision, which include the number of impacted individuals, the increased overdoses and risk of death and the financial and operational burden on emergency departments,” it said.

Jones has repeatedly rejected the suggestion that drug users could die as a result of a shift toward an abstinence-based treatment model.

Last month, a social services agency in Toronto launched a legal challenge against the law limiting supervise consumption sites, arguing it infringes on the Charter rights to life, liberty and security of person.