It should be apparent to us all that Sudbury is in the middle of a poverty and homelessness crisis that just seems to get worse. Last week’s events in the YMCA parking lot revealed that this crisis is testing our city’s basic standards for common human decency.
On Tuesday, May 11, members of the Poverty and Housing Advocacy Coalition held a Zoom meeting with officials from the City of Greater Sudbury. Our hope was to convince the staff to reverse their plan to forcibly remove a group of homeless people who had set up shelter in the YMCA parking lot.
Unfortunately, our pleas fell on deaf ears.
So the next day we called the press and we gathered in the Y's parking lot to support the people sheltering there and to try to prevent the destruction of their modest survival camp.
Contrary to the insinuations made by the city's spokesperson to the media, at no time were we intimidating anyone. It was all very peaceful, if sometimes somber. We were simply there, bearing witness.
The truth is that tearing apart the makeshift shelters of people who have nothing is an activity best done in the shadows, without anyone watching. When those who were charged with removing people understood that there was no alternative place for them to go, common decency prevailed and the “eviction plan” fell apart. For now.
Obviously, nobody believes that people should be squatting in cardboard shanties in the parking lot of the YMCA. But the reasons that people are there are very clear: deep poverty and a total lack of affordable housing in our city.
The solution is not to keep shuffling people from one shelter or encampment to another. These are our neighbours, our community. We need to stop trying to hide the ways we are failing them. Real homes and real supports are needed now.
If we don’t take this seriously, the growing number of homeless people will continue to suffer. Overworked outreach workers and volunteers will continue to provide patch-work services just trying to keep people alive. And our city will continue to be degraded by our apparent lack of humanity.
We hope that Sudburians will start seeing this crisis for what it is and insist that our politicians at all levels create real solutions that treat people with the respect and compassion that we all deserve.
Laurie McGauley
Poverty and Housing Advocacy Coalition