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Community services board discusses expanding Out of the Cold Shelter

Avoiding overlap at facilities is a key 
outofcold
The city of Greater Sudbury community services committee met on Sept. 19 and discussed the city's homeless facilities, including the Out of the Cold Shelter. File photo.

The City of Greater Sudbury community services committee met on Sept. 19 and discussed the city's homeless facilities, including the Out of the Cold Shelter.

The Out of the Cold Shelter completed its second season of operation from Nov. 1, 2015 to April 15, 2016 at 200 Larch Street.

The shelter's hours are 8 p.m to 7 a.m. daily throughout their operating season, and Ward 5. Coun. Robert Kirwan questioned where the service's users go during off hours.

"Is there a lot of overlap between the harm reduction day program (open 8 a.m to 10 p.m.) and the Out of the Cold Shelter?" asked Kirwan. 

"How do we make this seamless?"

When the Out of the Cold Shelter was started two years ago, the city was careful to ensure that services were not being duplicated, according to Gail Spencer, co-ordinator of shelters and homelessness.

"The main gap within our programs was an overnight shelter for people to have a safe, warm place to sleep," said Spencer.

"We do know that there are many existing day programs in our community for people who are experiencing homelessness, most pointedly at the Samaritan Centre, they open their doors for breakfast at 7:30 a.m. and close their doors at 7 p.m."

The city has been working with community partners to ensure that people dealing with homelessness have a place transition to.

"Some of the people in the morning when they leave the Out of the Cold program, they go to the men's shelter and have a coffee then they go over to the Samaritan Centre and have breakfast," said Spencer. "Some people have places to go during the day and programs they're involved with, but the main point was to have a place for people to go overnight without duplicating other services."

The program was opened in conjunction with the CMHA's (Canadian Mental Health Association) managed alcohol program, and the current RFP is a four year program, which will allow it to operate for one more year after this year.

"Our vision has always been that we'd be able to locate a building to operate both programs together and potentially have other services involved," said Spencer.

"When that occurs we're looking for efficiencies and operation of programs that can function so that we could potentially have it open for all 12 months."


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