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City provides shelter from the storm for homeless agencies

BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN Ward 6 Councillor Janet Gasparini nearly started crying Wednesday night as she told city council about a sign she saw at a homelessness rally in the downtown core earlier that day.

BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN

Ward 6 Councillor Janet Gasparini nearly started crying Wednesday night as she told city council about a sign she saw at a homelessness rally in the downtown core earlier that day.

"The sign said my Sudbury doesn't care about homeless people, and it broke my heart," said Gasparini, while presenting a resolution to save nine homelessness agencies in the city.

Her tears didn't last long. City council unanimously voted in favour of Gasparini's resolution to use $194,407 of last year's unexpected $4.89 million budget surplus to keep the agencies open until the end of the year.

In the meantime, the Community Solutions Team that studied the city's homelessness crisis last year will form an advisory panel to come up with a viable plan for the agencies by the end of September.

The team members are Nancy Dube, Penny Earley, Terry Fortin, Margaret Borley, Vicki Smith, Grace Kurke, Glen Thibeault and Vera Etches.

They will lobby federal and provincial political leaders to attain "reasonable and sustainable" funding levels for homelessness programs.

Part of the problem is the impending end of the federal government's National Homelessness Initiative's Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative (SCPI). The program was supposed to expire at the end of March, but was extended for one year.

City staff had come up with a plan of action to deal with the homeless funding crisis and presented it at a priorities meeting June 7. Under the plan, after July 1, organizations would have been asked to put in applications to get funding. The priorities committee approved the plan, but it was repealed Wednesday night at the council meeting after Gasparini's resolution passed.

"These were real tangible programs, and real jobs. I'm assuming that layoff notices had already been given out because we passed (the staff recommendations) last week," Gasparini told reporters after her resolution was approved.

"I remember when I spoke about it last week, I said that if these people aren't here, it will be the police cruiser, two officers, and ambulance and the emergency department that will be used. We've actually saved taxpayers a good chunk of money tonight."

The programs that had faced possible closure included the Corner Clinic, the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth, Elizabeth Fry Outreach, the John Howard Society, the Elgin Street Mission and L'Association des jeunes de la rue.

"I'm so happy right now. What a relief," said Lise Senecal, executive director of L'Association des jeunes de la rue, which runs the "redcoat" program as well as a shelter for young women aged 16-19.

Her organization received almost $19,000 in bridge funding from the United Way recently, but it only would have kept them open until October.

Now she can give the money back to the United Way.

"The council of Sudbury has always been great. They make decisions based on facts. They had the right facts tonight and they made the right decision," she said.

Ward 4 Councillor Ted Callaghan said he'd support Gasparini's motion on the condition that the advisory team found "a new way of doing business" with regards to homelessness programs.

"I want to be assured that we're not going to come here with the status quo, and we're not just going to throw property taxes at it. That's not a solution."

Ward 2 Councillor Claude Berthiaume said it was "very logical" that council fund the homelessness programs for another six months given that they're sitting on a surplus.

"Hopefully we can move the federal and provincial government to receive more assistance in that area (of homelessness)," he said. "This year we sit on a surplus, but we may not be in the same situation in the future."


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