The City of Greater Sudbury announced March 15 their plans to dismantle the homeless encampment in Memorial Park, as well as another on the grounds of 199 Larch St.
The decision was based on directives in the encampment guide created for the city by Iain De Jong. The dismantling will begin at noon on April 1.
“The Leadership Encampment Table is moving forward with the next step in the encampment strategy and action plan with a planned closure of the remaining encampments within Memorial Park,” states a press release from the city, released on March 15.
One of the considerations for closing the encampment, according to the guide, is the “refusal of three or more offers of service by remaining encampment residents.”
Gail Spencer, the city’s co-ordinator of shelters and homelessness, said if someone has declined the services being offered, like a stay at the shelter, which she said usually has at least 20 beds open, that is fine.
However, “at this point, now, they just can't remain in the park,” Spencer said.
“They can make choices to move elsewhere, if that's what they want to do, they don't have to accept services. But we have documented that we know we've reached out to them, at least we've offered it to them.
“We know that we've had those conversations, and so we feel confident that making this next step in the strategy is with full confidence that we've really tried to help everybody that we could.”
At present, the city states that there are still 112 individuals in Greater Sudbury who are considered actively homeless, said Spencer.
(Though numbers were included with the city press release, those numbers were incorrect and updated by Spencer during a March 16 interview with Sudbury.com.)
“There's 112, as of yesterday, still on the list,” said Spencer of the names on the city’s coordination access list, also known as a by name list. “In total, 224 people have been added to the list: of those 85 have been housed, 27 have been deactivated — they've moved to another community, or they're gone to hospital or treatment or something like that.
She said that of the 112 still on the list, “19 are staying in an encampment, somewhere.”
There are also several smaller camping areas around the city, said Spencer.
“Not everybody's in Memorial Park,” she said. “People move around a lot, so some people will stay in an encampment a couple of days, may go over and stay a couple days in the shelter, they couch-surf for a couple of days. So we just try to identify where they are usually the most often. But it's not an exact science.”
There are 31 individuals who are unsheltered, meaning they're outdoors “but alone, not in an encampment structure,” said Spencer. She added that 33 are staying in a shelter, including those staying at the motel the city has been using throughout the pandemic, and 29 are “provisionally accommodated.” Spencer indicated that might be “couchsurfing or at withdrawal management or in hospital, something like that.”
Spencer said there are individuals that have “not engaged in services” in addition to those who are on the by-name list and are waiting for housing.
“We certainly do have a couple people in the park that are connected to the by-name lists (and) that do have a housing worker, and that are working really hard to find a place.”
Spencer acknowledged that many encampment residents have service restrictions in place, preventing them from using services or the 20 beds at shelters for a set period, sometimes up to a month. Spencer said this is usually in regards to poor behaviour.
She said the city would work with the individual to find a solution regardless. However, three people recently in the encampment have told Sudbury.com that this is not their experience, equating it more to a ban.
“Most shelter restrictions are for a set amount of time, based on the level of the incident and the behavior and the consistency,” said Spencer. “Although there are some people that do have a longer-term restriction, if it's warranted, but if someone says today, I have a service restriction, that might not mean that tomorrow, they can't go back to the shelter. It depends on the situation.”
There have also been available provincial “flex funds’ to support other actions to get people out of the park, including options for encampment members to return to their home community, if available.
“Since flex funds were introduced in November 2021, 25 people have been supported,” said Spencer. “Of the 25 people, 11 were reunified with family, six were housed in another community, two housed in Sudbury and six supported with “other,” said Spencer, indicating that could be for obtaining ID for housing or a return to home community.
However, this may not be the end of the encampments in Sudbury, especially as the weather warms.
“We always see people experiencing homelessness who migrate to Sudbury, transitioning through Sudbury, just like we have people from Sudbury that migrate to other communities,” said Spencer. “We fully expect that there will be new people showing up in our community that will be looking for services and our goal, obviously, is that we'll be reaching out to them as quickly as possible to help get them connected to the support they need to get housed.”
She notes that existing spaces are now reopening after the pandemic, and offers the recent reopening of the Elgin Street Mission and Blue Door Soup Kitchen, as an example.
“That's a place that we know that we can often connect with people and make sure that information is posted about the services.”
As well as services for the vulnerable beginning to reopen or expand capacity, Spencer said there is no commitment to extend the warming centre operation past May 31, the day the contract ends.
“We are looking forward to the community agencies and partners reopenings,” said Spencer, “Such as the Samaritan Centre, the libraries, there's discussions with the city's offices opening, and a lot of things that people used to use for those purposes are reopening
She said there have been no decisions about the future of the warming centre made at this point.
Jenny Lamothe is a reporter with Sudbury.com. She covers the diverse communities of Sudbury, especially the vulnerable or marginalized, including the Black, Indigenous, newcomer and Francophone communities, as well as 2SLGBTQ+ and issues of the downtown core.
