The city’s ongoing push for provincial funding to operate transitional housing has an advocate within the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.
“110 per cent,” Mental Health and Addictions Associate Minister Michael Tibollo affirmed to Sudbury.com earlier this week.
On Monday, Tibollo delivered a wide-reaching presentation on his and his government’s goals during the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities conference at the Holiday Inn and Conference Centre.
Speaking to municipal leaders from throughout Northern Ontario, he spoke against focusing too greatly on “Band-Aid solutions” to mental health and addictions, and asserted that the government is working on longer-term solutions.
While important, he said withdrawal management and detox programs only go so far if there aren’t adequate follow-ups, without which people end up on a “merry-go-round” and re-enter the system.
“If you’re going to fix that problem you need to have the next piece, which is the treatment, which is followed by supportive housing which is followed by transitional housing,” he said.
“That continuum of care is that exit ramp to ensure that person doesn’t recycle through a system that will require you to build a bigger system with a bigger Band-Aid to deal with the same issue.”
A 40-unit transitional housing complex for people who are chronically homeless is currently under construction on Lorraine Street, and at the latest update was projected to open by July.
The City of Greater Sudbury has joined local NDP MPPs France Gelinas (Nickel Belt) and Jamie West (Sudbury) in pushing for the province to fund the complex’s operational costs, and have been doing so for the past few years.
The latest estimate tags the complex’s operational costs at approximately $2.5 million, which includes an Assertive Community Treatment Team (ACTT) of medical experts to work with the facility’s chronically homeless residents to achieve permanent community housing.
Health care is a provincial jurisdiction, but Greater Sudbury city council has opted to fund the project anyway in hopes the province will step up to the plate.
A smaller preliminary ACTT has been operating at a temporary location and has reported early successes. Between July 2021 and October 2023, the team joined other municipal efforts in housing 308 people experiencing homelessness, of whom approximately 10 per cent returned to homelessness, according to the city
At midday Monday, Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre said the ACTT’s early successes were being relayed to the provincial ministers during this week’s conference to help sell them on funding the transitional housing complex.
Recent news coming out of Thunder Bay has also been promising, he said, where the province provided $9.2 million to help create 52 supportive housing units, including accommodations for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
Following his public presentation in which he spoke favourably of transitional housing, Sudbury.com connected with Tibollo for greater insight on the city’s funding request.
“If the application is in, we’re looking at them,” he said. “I personally want to prioritize anywhere we can create a treatment continuum in the community.”
In Toronto, he said 250 people went to the University Health Network 15,000 times in one year.
“We built 40 modular homes, put 40 of the ones who were the most frequent attendees of the hospital, they didn’t go to the hospital one time,” he said.
“If you want to fix the health-care system in this province, you’ve got to give people housing, you’ve got to look upstream and address the social concern.”
Reiterating a key point he made during his presentation, Tibollo said, “You need to have that supportive housing” as part of a continuum of care, to “break that cycle.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
