Sudbury city council rejects tiny homes, backs new transitional housing for youth and Indigenous people

Greater Sudbury city council approved plans Tuesday afternoon to move ahead with new transitional housing projects aimed at addressing homelessness for youth and Indigenous people.

However, a majority voted down Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc's proposal to explore a tiny homes pilot project as a temporary housing solution.

The decisions come as part of Sudbury's Roadmap to End Homelessness by 2030, which seeks to make homelessness "rare, brief, and non-recurring" in the city in the next five years.

Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh led a motion to develop a 40-unit, Indigenous-led transitional housing complex with wraparound supports. 

The business case will be prepared in collaboration with Indigenous community partners and is expected during the 2026–2027 budget cycle.

"There are currently 304 unhoused individuals in Greater Sudbury, of which 77 per cent identify as high acuity, requiring wraparound supports," reads the motion. 

McIntosh compared the plan to council's previous support for the Lorraine Street transitional housing project, which is expected to welcome its first tenants next week.  

"I believe that just like in November of 2020 when Council requested a business case for what was to become our 40 unit Lorraine street transitional housing project, that we need to be proactive and shovel ready for federal and provincial grants that will hopefully be coming to meet this growing need for supportive housing," she said. 

Youth housing a growing concern

A second motion, introduced by Mayor Paul Lefebvre focuses on creating a 24-hour transitional housing program and emergency shelter beds for those aged 16 to 24. The city's latest homelessness report lists 14 youth in this age group without housing.

Lefebvre, who chairs the community safety and well-being panel, said the motion was informed by local agencies reporting a rising number of homeless youth.

"The challenges of our youth that are precariously housed, or sometimes they're couch surfing because unfortunately they don't have a home to go back to, and it's becoming a major issue," he said.

The most debated item was a motion by Coun. Bill Leduc to explore a tiny homes project as a fast, temporary housing option for people currently living in homeless encampments. 

Leduc called tiny homes a "stepping stone" for those sleeping outside, noting that "when you're homeless, it's life and death."

But city staff expressed concerns. Tyler Campbell, general manager of community wellbeing, told council that tiny homes are not part of the city's long-term housing roadmap.

Campbell explained that the annual operating costs for tiny homes would be similar to other supportive housing programs. Specifically, tiny home wrap-around services would cost around $2 million annually. By comparison, the Lorraine Street 40-unit transitional housing project provides similar services at a slightly lower cost.

"The durability is not a long term capital infrastructure project, as opposed to, you know, multi-residential, transitional or supportive housing that we would be looking at a 40-, 5-0, 60-year return on," he said.

He also noted that cities like Hamilton are phasing out tiny homes, and that no provincial or federal funding is currently available for such projects.

City council ended up rejecting the tiny homes motion by a vote of 8 to 5. 

Mayor calls for more federal, provincial support

Mayor Lefebvre said Sudbury faces ongoing challenges in addressing homelessness and urged more support from provincial and federal governments.

He warned that without help for neighbouring communities, Sudbury risks being overwhelmed with people seeking housing it cannot provide.

"Where my concern lies is that other communities that applied did not receive the funding, and so I'm very supportive, certainly of Timmins and North Bay getting that type of support as well. If not, people think, well, we'll just send our most acute cases to Sudbury," he said. 

"We cannot accommodate them at all, like we are already completely maxed out. So that's why we need to have a government of the province and the feds helping out these municipalities in these areas, to help these folks in their regions to stay there." 

He said that getting staff working on these businesses cases now is to ensure Greater Sudbury is prepared to apply for federal housing funds expected to open this fall.