Atikameksheng Anishnawbek launches community hub in Sudbury, Ont.

Atikameksheng Anishnawbek band members who live in Greater Sudbury, Ont., now have a new space to call their own.

The First Nation, located about 20 kilometres west of Sudbury, had its grand opening on Monday for its new Atikameksheng Anishnawbek Community Support Hub in the city's downtown.

Gimaa Craig Nootchtai said about 60 per cent of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek's band members live off-reserve in the Sudbury area.

"So it only makes sense for us to come to our community members wherever they are," he said. "And so that's how the idea for this community hub came to be."

The community hub offers a number of services including outreach for band members who are experiencing homelessness in Sudbury.

"It's  just a support space to give them one-on-one support or a place to kind of get off the street for a little bit, somewhere warm, somewhere cool in the summer months," said Tiffany Taylor, an outreach worker with Atikameksheng Anishnawbek who works out of the Sudbury hub.

"They have access to the basic human needs that are needed for everyone such as water, some emergency items, such as clothes and even bags for their personal belongings."

Taylor said a mental health and addictions worker is also based at the hub, and they have access to sacred medicines to help band members who live in the city.

Band members who are going to school in Sudbury, at one of the city's two colleges, or Laurentian University, are also welcome at the hub to reconnect with their home community.

Taylor added the community hub also has a children's space for drop-offs if parents have to run to appointments.  

Gimaa Nootchtai said they hope the Sudbury hub can serve as a model for future projects.

"We want to do something similar in Toronto," he said.

"So there's a large portion of our band members who live in Toronto, who have said the exact same thing, they need to reconnect with Atikameksheng."