Sudbury's new shelter is filled to capacity every night

Sudbury's new permanent shelter opened November 25 and each of its 30 cots has been filled every night since.

The year-round facility at 200 Larch Street in the city's downtown is operated by the Canadian Mental Health Association Sudbury/Manitoulin (CMHA).

Cindy Rose manages shelter services for the CMHA. She says shelter staff have to turn away two or three people each night.

"If there's a cold weather alert they are able to go to the Samaritan Centre because it's a warming station," said Rose. "We work with them to see if we can divert them to a friend's house or if they happen to need medical services we can get them transportation to the hospital," she added.

"We work with the safe beds and the detox closely so we're able to problem solve with them and then really encourage them to come back the next day so that we can kind of find a more permanent solution for them," Rose explained. The Safe Bed Program provides a short stay residential program (7 to 10 days) for people in crisis.

The first-come, first-served shelter opens at 10 p.m. and Rose says she has seen people lined up by 8:30 p.m.

Both men and women are welcomedand Rose says while most of the people staying in the shelter are men, she does see an average of five or six women each night.

Rose says the CMHA won't be adding any more cots at the shelter.

"What we're really focused on is moving people through the shelter services and really working on getting them permanent housing," said Rose.

She says the CMHA helps link people to different services, and community partners come to the shelter as well to meet with people in the morning before they leave.

"We're really working with them to make sure they understand that they deserve a home. And we really want to help them find permanent housing so that they can have somewhere to call home as opposed to having to wait for a bathroom or sleep on a cot or wait 'til 10 o'clock at night to come in," said Rose.

"That's really been working well and it's been well received the fact that they feel valued and they feel like we are really trying to help them."

Rose says that in the past few weeks, the CMHA has found permanent housing for two or three individuals.

She says the staff are finding their work more satisfying as well. "They're really seeing that they're actually helping people as opposed to just giving a roof over their head," she said. "They're actually seeing progress of people moving on and understanding that we're doing this for the good of them and for what they deserve."