Greater Sudbury making changes to better respond to needs of homeless

The City of Greater Sudbury is working to tighten its safety net to better help chronically homeless people and provide services to keep them in their homes.

The problem with some homeless individuals is they fall into gaps in service says Gail Spencer, co-ordinator of Shelters and Homelessness for the city.

She uses the example of someone applying for a housing subsidy or spending some time in a shelter, but then moving on without coming in contact with other social services that could help them.

"We don't have a co-ordinated way of looking across the board at where did this person come from, why are they experiencing homelessness, how can we provide them with a co-ordinated system of support," she said.

"So that we can get them connected to the right type of support and housing for them and that will prevent them from falling back into homelessness."

Spencer says work is continuing to draw together various services and provide a way to share information about people so they get the full range of assistance.

It's called a Co-ordinated Access System and should come into effect within the next six months.

The system is based on best practices from elsewhere across Canada.

The goal is that all homeless services take part in the system, and work together to provide support so individuals don't have to go from organization to organization.

Meantime, a tweak to a housing strategy already in existence, called Housing First, has found success, according to Spencer.

"We saw 104 people who previously had been chronically homeless being supported by a Housing First case manager," she said.

"Which means help to get affordable housing in our community, and ongoing support over the next six to 12 months, as long as they need, to stay housed and to get connected to the other resources they might need." 

Those resources could include mental health services  as well as employment assistance.