In the wake of multiple criminal incidents in the City of Hamilton involving youth, Mayor Andrea Horwath brought forward a motion to City Council to advocate to the Government of Ontario for a provincial Youth Wellness Hub.
Since 2020, the Province of Ontario has launched 32 Youth Wellness Hubs across the province, which provide walk-in, low-barrier, youth-friendly spaces where young people aged 12-25 can access a wide range of mental health support, substance use counselling, primary care, peer support, social services, and skill-building programs.
While the Niagara Region has a provincial Youth Wellness Hub in Welland, the City of Hamilton does not yet have a location.
Horwath says she initiated discussions about a Hamilton-based Youth Wellness Hub at the 2024 Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, when she spoke with the former Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addiction (now Associate Attorney General) Michael Tibollo.
She added that the City of Hamilton lost support from the federal Building Safer Communities Fund in March 2026.
The federal fund previously supported nine youth-serving agencies in the city that were focused on violence prevention, youth outreach, mentorship, intervention, and gang prevention programming.
The calls for a Youth Wellness Hub in the city come after a number of high-profile criminal incidents involving youth violence, gun violence, and suspected gang involvement.
In April 2025, Harsimrat Randhawa, a 21-year-old innocent bystander waiting at a Hamilton Mountain bus stop, was shot and killed.
In July 2025, Belinda Sarkodie, an innocent bystander waiting at a Downtown Hamilton bus stop, was shot and killed. The alleged killer in the incident is 17 years old.
This year, in April, 16-year-old Nabil Askafe was shot and killed at Jackson Square Mall in Downtown Hamilton, with the suspect arrested in the incident only 14 years old.
Most recently, on April 30, 19-year-old Talon Williams-Parkin was shot and killed inside a CityHousing apartment building in Downtown Hamilton. Police are still searching for two suspects in that incident.
Horwath’s motion, which passed unanimously at Council, calls on Children’s and Community Services staff to collaborate with Hamilton’s Child and Youth Network, which includes local community-based youth organizations, youth service providers, public health partners, school boards, and healthcare institutions, to support the development of a Hamilton Youth Wellness Hub model.
Horwath will also formally request the Province of Ontario, specifically the Minister of Health, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, and the Associate Attorney General, to support the establishment and sustained provincial funding of a Youth Wellness Hub in the City of Hamilton.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
