Hours to be reduced at social services hub at Energy Court in Sudbury

Sudbury’s 24-hour warming centre and homeless hub at Energy Court to drop services to only 8 hours per day on May 1.

After operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all winter, the Energy Court warming centre in Sudbury may be reduced to eight hours daily May 1, when it becomes a cooling drop-in centre.

However, city council sent the staff report recommending the reduced hours back for another review, asking for more options to identify and address gaps.

The trailer at Energy Court operates as a social services hub serving the homeless and vulnerable. The service provider is the Go-Give Project.

“It does leave 16 unsupervised hours for everybody in the Energy Court area and will affect the broader community,” said Evie Ali, Go-Give’s executive director.

“So we are hoping, you know, when we go back to planning, we can discuss some of these finer details both with our councillors and city staff.”

Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent has asked for a staff report at the mid-May meeting to update council once the hub is reduced to eight hours May 1.

“My motion received unanimous support from my peers to extend at least the eight-hour service throughout the month of May while we work harder to understand the gaps and the services needed to fill those gaps,” said Parent.

He said funding for services offered at Energy Court is the responsibility of federal and provincial governments, not municipalities.

“Ninety-four per cent of those in Energy Court are struggling with addiction issues and 86 per cent with mental health. These are provincial responsibilities,” said Parent.

“We are very excited with the Government of Canada announcement today from the unsheltered homeless and encampment initiative that there will be more money that is being invested to numerous provinces in regard to this matter,” said Ali.

City pays the full cost

The cost to operate the proposed cooling centre from May to September is $800,000. At this point, the city would be paying the full cost by drawing from reserve funds.

“If we don’t provide any services, we are really concerned about the consequences to those members of the community if they have no supports at all,” Parent said.

“The consequences to businesses and residents of the area again if we are not seeing ... an anchor tenant providing those support services for members of that community.”

He said he also worries about the impact on emergency services.

The Go-Give Project said it would like to see the cooling centre run for 12 hours a day and the encampment response run 16 hours a day from May to September.