Over the Thanksgiving Weekend, I was reminded of how blessed I am, and how much my family and I have to be thankful for.
As I’ve been going door-to-door and speaking with residents about their concerns for our city, one of the main issues I’ve been hearing about is homelessness. People have been asking, what are you going to do to help the homeless?
I know that we didn’t do a great job of sharing the story, but Greater Sudbury city council and staff actually went above and beyond over the last few years to support our city’s most vulnerable.
Homelessness was front and centre during the pandemic, and I couldn’t stand the feeling of sitting at home in a warm house knowing that there were so many people left outside in the cold. Our community’s most vulnerable were either alone in this uncertain time or gathered in encampments. Normal support services were suddenly closed, new capacity limits and rules were being enforced, and many were fearful of getting each other sick.
An encampment in Memorial Park grew quickly, alongside calls to deal with it. Some people wanted us to call in the cavalry and clear out the park, while others wanted us to do the opposite, and let the people stay there while providing supports like food, water and tents.
In the end, there were lots of ideas flying around, but as we aren’t experts in the matter we decided to hire someone who is. Iain De Jong, a world-renowned homelessness and encampment expert (originally from the Sault), who literally wrote “The Book on Ending Homelessness”, came to town and helped us figure out what to do.
Mr. De Jong let us know that there are no “quick fixes”, that we needed a more co-ordinated response, and to focus on person-centred (rather than one-size-fits-all) efforts if we wanted to make a real impact. He also recommended that council resource five different initiatives that would make an impact, and we agreed to support every recommendation.
We facilitated the creation of a new, low-barrier women’s shelter (Elizabeth Fry Society’s Safe Harbour House), created flex funds to support individuals with diverse needs, explored master leasing opportunities, converted two bedroom apartments into double the number of one bedroom apartments to better match housing supply with demand, hired an Assertive Community Treatment Team and set up a motel as clinically supported transitional housing.
Separate from those recommendations, the city began a new partnership with Raising the Roof’s Community Builders program that creates low-barrier, on-the-job training opportunities while building new units of affordable housing. They are currently renovating five single-family homes in town into ten apartments of affordable housing, while providing experience in the trades to people with barriers to employment.
Planning staff, under council direction, have also been working to identify any barriers to building affordable/attainable housing, and have made changes to our zoning bylaw that encourage the creation of secondary units, laneway houses and tiny homes.
All-in-all, a ton has been done, and a lot of people have been housed. At its height, there were almost 100 people living in the Memorial Park encampment, but when it finally ended there were only two people left, who voluntarily moved to other housing options with the assistance of city staff and outreach workers.
I don’t want to suggest that enough has been done. One of the most important efforts in the fight against homelessness is the new 40-apartment transitional housing building that will be going up in the spring.
It’s going to be the first new public housing built in Greater Sudbury in decades, and home to the Assertive Community Treatment Team that is currently operating out of a local motel. We need to see that through. That will be a critical piece of the puzzle, where people can go to get more than simply a roof over their heads — the help they need.
I remember staff telling me how frustrating it was for them to have to say “I don’t know where you can go, but you can’t stay here”, but soon they will be able to say “You can’t stay here, but if you want, we have a place where you can go to get back on your feet”.
That’s a good news story, and something that everyone in Greater Sudbury should be proud of.
So what are we going to do to help the homeless?
We’re going to work together to build on our successes, expand our partnerships, continue to support evidence-based solutions, and keep up the good fight. With the support of the community, I know that we can truly make a difference.
Geoff McCausland is running for re-election to the Greater Sudbury city council seat for Ward 4.
