While the City of Greater Sudbury now has a roadmap to end homelessness, it may still be a long journey to the final destination, said Raymond Landry, co-ordinator of Housing Services for the Homelessness Network.
But while the journey is long, he’s hopeful about the process.
The Homelessness Network of Sudbury was consulted as part of the creation of the roadmap, said Landry, and added their boots-on-the-ground knowledge to the process.
Spurred by a motion from Ward. 5 Coun. Mike Parent, the roadmap was presented to council on May 28. It is heavily reliant on an influx of funding from all three levels of government, with a cost of $350 million: $322 million in capital and start-up costs, $13.6 million annually in operating costs and $11 million annually in additional rent supplements.
The Roadmap’s aim is for Sudbury to be at what’s known as “functional zero” homelessness by 2030. Functional zero does not mean the complete absence of homelessness, but rather, a system that ensures homelessness is rare, brief and non-recurring. That, and the number of people experiencing homelessness (as denoted by the by-name list) is three or fewer for a period of three months.
The plan included four pillars: Prevention (homelessness is rare); Rapid re-housing (homelessness is brief); Supportive housing and wrap-around services (homelessness is non-recurring), and; System-level recommendations (engaging other partners for shared advocacy and system planning).
Prevention and rapid re-housing, at their core, require housing, and that is what is at the heart of the roadmap, said Landry. A focus on “purpose-built, non-market housing.”
A reinvestment in community housing
Landry said some in his sector believe the lack of investment in social housing is the cause of the current homelessness crisis. “The tsunami wave started 40 years ago, when the federal government stopped investing in social housing,” he said.
Subsidized housing used to be under the federal funding umbrella, a move to assist workers returning after the Second World War, and again in the 1970s as recessions made housing increasingly unaffordable.
In the early 1990s, back-to-back governments began pulling back from affordable housing, reducing spending significantly and eventually cutting the programs entirely. By 1993, responsibility fell to the province in a process called devolution.
In 1995, the Mike Harris’ provincial government cancelled the provincial housing program. These actions resulted in significantly less non-profit housing being developed in Ontario. Then, in 2001, the province devolved the responsibilities of funding and administration of most non-profit housing to municipalities.
Since that point, a lack of maintenance or new build investments has left a void, said Landry.
“The public plan for housing never kept up with the growth in Canadian population, and the expectation that the private market was going to develop and build enough housing and apartments to fulfill the need came crashing down during the pandemic,” he said. “It’s clear that there is just not enough housing in Canada, and locally, because of that lack of purposeful investment.”
Community housing is owned by the government and rented to tenants at a rate geared to their income. This is an important piece, said Landry, as the idea of what affordable truly means differs for all.
For instance, affordable to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) means 80 per cent of market rent.
Landry said he is glad the roadmap is pointing to rent-geared-to-income (RGI) housing. RGI housing means a tenant's rent will be no higher than 30 per cent of their income.
For individuals receiving social assistance, which is 79 per cent of individuals on the By-Name List, RGI is often the only affordable option.
With additional RGI community housing, at least a quarter of the people on the city’s By-Name list would be housed, and permanently, said Landry.
High-acuity community members
There are others on the list that are not ready to live in independent housing, considered high need or high-acuity either due to health issues, addiction or chronic homelessness, and for these reasons, Landry is supportive of the direct interventions suggested in the roadmap. They include an increase in supportive housing, additional transitional housing — similar to the 40-bed Lorraine Street project currently underway — as well as a move away from emergency shelter beds to a more stable system.
There would still be emergency beds for the people who need them at the last minute, but at the same time, a chance to come back to the same bed and the same people each night.
There is also the potential to make existing shelter spaces, like the Elizabeth Fry Safe Harbour House, open 24 hours rather than 12, and to develop an Indigenous-led shelter and transitional housing program.
Landry added that the work for high-acuity members of the by-name list the roadmap is a solid plan, but contingent on the affordable housing plan coming to fruition.
In fact, Landry said the dependence on funding from three levels is “the stopper in all of this.”
He also said there is a need for funding, mostly on the provincial side, for the health-related issues keeping people homeless.
“We need the provincial government to show up and continue investing more and more in treatment beds, in community-based counseling and interventions, and in direct support to those who are suffering through the opioid crisis,” he said. “Including a safe injection site and harm reduction space.”
He also said there needs to be a raise in the rates for Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).
“There definitely needs to be advocacy with the province, raising people's basic incomes; the present rates of OW and ODSP make no sense in the modern context,” said Landry. “They are out of date. And continue to make people stay in poverty rather than help them out of poverty.”
Questions remain
Landry said there are a “couple of things we are looking to hear from the city.”
In the roadmap, there is reference to shovel-ready projects, projects that can begin the moment the funding becomes available. Landry said he is “looking forward to knowing which of those projects will be shovel-ready, and sooner than later.”
He also hopes there will be more services for young people, especially in the wake of the closing of the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth (SACY).
The roadmap states an intention to “purchase a purpose-built building to develop a 24/hour youth transitional housing program with emergency shelter beds for youth aged 16-24,” as well as develop a Request for Proposal to seek an operator for the program.
“We're hoping to hear youth sheltering can be ready to go sooner than later,” said Landry. “It's a major gap in the system right now.”
And while it was 33 degrees on the day Landry spoke with Sudbury.com, Landry said the Homelessness Network was already thinking about the winter months.
“We need to have more permanent solutions to winter than suddenly opening up temporary spaces and then closing them down again in the spring, so that we're not left with our hands tied in the fall again,” he said. “Homelessness is growing and will continue to grow. There's no indication that homelessness will reduce in the next year.”
In fact, the city's reporting indicates that the “trendline for homelessness in Greater Sudbury estimates the homeless population will reach 741 individuals by 2030, a 205-per-cent increase from December 2023.”
Now that council has unanimously backed the plan, staff will prepare a financial plan that includes business cases for the 2025 budget, including human resource requirements.
Jenny Lamothe covers vulnerable and marginalized communities for Sudbury.com
