The city's finance and administration committee has directed staff to work towards opening the city's warming shelter spaces seven days a week, starting as soon as possible.
Meeting Tuesday evening, a pair of members' motions were brought forward by a trio of city councillors: Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh, Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier and Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann. The motions are aimed at closing the gaps in services to the city's most vulnerable citizens.
The first motion tabled Tuesday night directs city staff to work with existing service providers, including the YMCA and the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth (SACY) to expand the availability of warming shelter space to seven nights a week, effective as soon as possible.
Under the current system, warming shelters in Greater Sudbury are only opened on nights when extreme cold alerts are issued — when the temperature hits -15 C.
"As we're all aware, there's a lot of issues that have come to the surface over the past several months that have been exacerbated for a myriad of reasons, and we're responding to those as best we can," said Cormier.
"By no means is this an ultimate solution. I know we as a community can and will do better as we go forward and identify the gaps and the needs and responding to those, but what this will do if supported is provide immediate relief for this upcoming season."
Funding to keep the warming centres open on a seven-night-a-week basis would come from upper levels of government, with $175,000 coming from the existing Social Services Relief Fund Phase 2 - toward the youth warming shelter and temporary youth shelter beds.
An additional $200,000 would come from the existing Provincial Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative (CHPI) and Federal Reaching Home funding initiative.
"At the end of the day, it's fully funded by the province” and flows through the city, said Tyler Campbell, the city's director of social services.
Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc asked how many shelter beds would be created for the city's youth in need of the service, with Campbell stating that he anticipates between two and four beds at the SACY site.
"We have seen that we can get anywhere from one to four youth, depending on the night,” said Campbell.
“Some nights we don't see any at 200 Larch, but that's what we're looking at. We will have to engage our colleagues and building services to have a review of that if council approves the motion this evening."
While in favour of the motion, Ward 5 Coun. Robert Kirwan felt that the city could still be doing more and that steps were needed to move towards a 24/7 warming shelter in the city.
"What I see in this resolution is we're trying to get two to four beds at SACY and some other beds at YMCA,” he said.
“During the day we've got room for 20 or 30 people to go to Centre de Santé from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. I imagine there's another location for the afternoon.
“But if we have anywhere from 60 to 100 people who are homeless on the streets right now, it's not only cold from 10 at night to 7 in the morning. During January and February it's just as cold during the day. So if we're going to set up warming centres and warming stations, from my point of view we have to set them up 24 hours a day, seven days a week, not necessarily for sleeping, but to get out of the elements."
Campbell said a 24/7 warming shelter can be looked into by staff, noting that there are some obstacles to overcome with regard to COVID-19, as Centre de Santé closes in the afternoon in order to deep clean the facility.
"I'm in support of what councillor Kirwan has said and looking for a more fulsome solution; part of the task team that we've developed with various service providers that we work with, part of that objective is to identify what the actual gaps are and to develop approaches to fill in those gaps, as well as to do this as quickly as possible," said Mayor Brian Bigger.
"It's not about talking, it's about implementing, and I would suggest that council approve this motion, and let's get this in the works and then perhaps there can be direction for staff to look for additional space. It's all about taking action now, so let's make this move and not hold this up at all."
The idea of an expanded hours warming centre was brought to the table at the task team meeting last Friday.
"I was thrilled when I saw this motion and learned that my colleagues had already been working to get this creative solution coming down the pipe," said Ward 4 Coun. Geoff McCausland, who is a member of this task team.
"Certainly this motion doesn't cover every base, as councillor Kirwan was saying, but it does provide much better coverage for our community than we have presently, and when looking to improve and change our reality, the right place to start is somewhere."
Expanding the hours of the warming shelter has been identified as an immediate solution, a second members' motion was tabled and passed on Tuesday night that takes a look into the medium and longer term.
Staff has been directed to prepare a business case for the 2021 budget identifying the cose and source of funding to create transitional housing spaces and appropriate supports. The motion also directs staff to identify any grant opportunities that may be available from provincial or federal ministries.
"When people talk transitional housing, a lot of times there's a lot of pieces to that and certainly more than just the roof over one's head," said Cormier. "The biggest and most fundamentally important piece to transitional housing are the mental health and addiction supports that go with that, that allow people to go through the respective program and get them back on their feet."
Councillor Deb McIntosh was visibly emotional when speaking about the issues facing the city's most vulnerable, her voice quivering while stressing the need for action.
"I'm going to ask you to start thinking about what we are willing to give up in order to find the money to provide this supportive housing," said McIntosh.
"The money will be an investment with a tremendous payback for our entire community. We live in an incredibly caring community in Greater Sudbury and we take care of our people. These are our sons and daughters who are suffering, and it's time for long-term solutions toward a healthy community for everyone."
