Greater Sudbury looking for community partners for new youth shelter

Changes are coming to how emergency housing is provided for youth in Sudbury.

L'association des jeunes de la rue currently operates a 6-bed shelter on Cedar Street for teens who find themselves homeless. It's the city's only youth shelter.

The agency announced last spring that it will discontinue its shelter services at the end of March 2020 to focus on prevention and support programs.

The former executive director, Lise Sncal said earlier this year, thatchanges to funding from the provincial and federal governments for youth shelters was a main reason to close the shelter.

Youth shelters are now required to be open to people up to the age of 24, and they must be low-barrier, allowing youth under the influence of drugs and alcohol to have a bed for the night. Which does not fit the mandate of the agency.

The shelter has beenfilling the gap for young people from 16 to 18 years old, says executive directorDenis Constantineau, adding that this age is most vulnerable when they're on the street.

The City of Greater Sudbury is now looking for another organization interested in running a youth shelter,the new facility would cover a wider age range from 16 to 24 and would be a low-barrier facility.

Constantineau says the change in the needs of youth is one of the reasons that L'association des jeunes du la rue is discontinuing its shelter.

"One of the greatest needs is in terms of psychiatric help. The youth are coming in with more severe psychiatric problems," he said.

"We don't have the resources. We don't have the capacity internally to cope with that. There's a risk issue there. So we're hoping that going forward that there'll be more resources to address those needs in a new shelter."

"It's a different clientele, the needs are different, they're very vulnerable and the landscape has changed in the last couple of years in Sudbury," Constantineau said.

"There are greater risks. So you want to see [an agency] with pretty broad experience and a good community partner because it's important to draw in other partners to support the youth and their transition to permanent housing."

"They have until March 31 - April 1to get a shelter up and running, so the clock is ticking," he said.

The city says the request for proposals for the new youth shelter will be issued in December, with the new provider expected to open its shelter doors by April 2020.

"We're looking for community partners that also work with youth to come forward with any interesting ideas or out of the box thinking on how to provide services for youth who may also be homeless, but may require additional support such as mental health, income, employment, that type of thing," said Gail Spencer, Sudbury's coordinator of shelters and homelessness programs.

A small group of stakeholders, including Spencer visited Toronto this fall to learn best practices from several low-barrier youth shelters that operate there.

"It was very helpful for us as a community to see what it looks like, to learn some of their best practices, to hear their ideas and their methodologies and their policies," she said.

"It really gave us a good idea and a concept of what we would want to see here in Sudbury."

L'association des jeunes de la rue will still operate its outreach program, that is where workers known as Red Coats drive around overnight providing blankets, clothes, hot food or a drive to a warm location.