'The challenge of our time' as Sudbury mayoral candidates weigh in on homelessness

Melanie Johncox, an educator at the Sudbury District Jail, said her heart breaks when she sees her former students ending up broke and homeless on the downtown streets.

Johncox, who started recognizing former inmates in the Memorial Park encampment, decided she'd turn to offering her own outreach services to make sure these men weren't just falling through "huge gaps" in the system. 

"Some of them, they get arrested when they are homeless," Johncox said. "They end up in jail, they get cleaned up, they have some stability, a roof over their head but then they have nowhere to go."

With few supports around them upon their release, many end up in the city's shelters, or return to a life on the streets. 

Johncox said there are still halfway houses – transition homes where former prisoners can learn to reintegrate into society – but they are only offered for federal offenders, not provincial. 

"A lot of these guys, they just go right back out to the situation that they came from," Johncox said. "I wouldn't want to call it hopeless, but it's very difficult for people to get out of that circle when they don't have support."

And as Sudbury continues to grapple with issues surrounding its homeless population, candidates running for mayor in Monday's election are offering up solutions to curb the community numbers.

That includes candidate Paul Lefebvre's plan to repurpose city-owned buildings into shelters, Bob Johnston's promise to direct funds to education programs for the homeless, and Miranda Rocca-Circelli's vision to coordinate central service hubs that would be better able to allocate resources for the community.

Since Sudbury began tallying names on its provincially-mandated By-Name List, 399 people have been added to the city's reports.

Those lists aim to monitor homeless people, including detailed information about the needs of each individual. According to the latest report, 172 people remain homeless in Sudbury.

Still, even with new approaches like the list, people in the downtown core – which currently appears to be the epicentre of the crisis – have raised concerns about crime, visible drug use, and an overall sense of compromised safety. 

Lefebvre, a former Member of Parliament, told CBC News that his experience at the federal level will help leverage funds needed to build new affordable housing to ease pressure on shelters.

He points to the $7.5 million invested in housing that he helped bring in in 2021, but which has since become a controversial development transitional housing project slated for Lorraine Street.

"The only solution to homelessness is homes," Lefebvre said. "Adding shelters, that's the only way that you can address that."

Lefebvre said the City of Greater Sudbury owns buildings – currently vacant or derelict – that with the right amount of funding can be transformed into housing.

"We need to think outside the box," he said. "So it's a major challenge. It's the challenge of our time. The opioid, the mental health crisis that we're facing, but we cannot ignore it, and it makes more economic sense to deal with it than to ignore it."

Candidate Miranda Rocca-Circelli said the city's role should be that of facilitator for the several groups committed to bringing services to the homeless.

"They're struggling," Rocca-Circelli said. "Struggling for capacity and they're doing the best they can."

"One night I was working with an organization. We were making food and we were feeding the homeless, but we ran out of food," she said. "Those are things that are important because when someone's hungry, they need to eat."

"So I think it's important again to work with these organizations and to create a hub of sorts where they can leverage their resources and they can share our resources."

In a statement released Thursday, candidate Evelyn Dutrisac said if elected, she would establish a working group made up of community leaders, service providers, and police. 

"We must also take this issue to a National Forum where Federal, Provincial, Municipal as well as Nonprofit leaders have to deal with the issue," the statement reads. "We need to develop a National Strategy supported with the necessary resources to deal with this most critical issue.'"

Dutrisac cited causes of homelessness as a lack of affordable housing, unemployment, mental health problems and substance abuse.

"This issue is also a major contributor to crime in Greater Sudbury i.e. residential break-ins, assaults, robberies, and property damage," the statement reads. "Working together seeking tangible solutions will improve health and stability among those struggling with addiction and homelessness."

Candidate Bob Johnston, who works on the front lines of Sudbury's homeless community through his outreach group Tomorrow's Hope, said he would give $50,000 of his mayor's salary to provide educational programs, coupled with residency, to members of the homeless community.

"I'd also like to see a treatment centre in the north," Johnston said. "We have one up in the north in Elliot Lake and the waiting list is 6 months."

"We have so many people suffering in this city alone from mental health and addictions," Johnston added. "We can tell by the white crosses and so on, and it breaks my heart."

"But we can solve this issue. Working together, I plan to walk in as mayor, build a solid team around the table and all of the counselors and stuff and it will be like a ball team."

"We can all hit, we can all catch and we can all run. And when you have an outlook like that and everybody's on board, you can accomplish a lot in this city."