Greater Sudbury city officials say they are making progress in addressing the homelessness crisis and getting people the help they need, in a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
The virtual news conference comes amid criticism saying the city is not doing enough to address things like encampments.
It included city councillors, representatives of the many shelters and members of Sudbury's task force, who provided their thoughts and comments during the update.
"We've seen a number of gains in terms of the reduction of encampment numbers, specifically over the last three months," said Tyler Campbell, the city's director of child and social services.
According to the last point-in-time homelessness count, which was done on one evening in October, there were a total of 398 people identified as experiencing homelessness.
"As you understand, homelessness is very fluid. We see people moving in and out of our community. We see people becoming housed, becoming homeless, it's a very fluid and it's hard to track down but the information that I have and that I have in front of me, I would say that we're definitely doing better than we were on that night," said Gail Spencer, coordinator of shelters and homelessness in Sudbury.
"We have a lot of capacity in the system. Over the past four weeks, we have seen 22 beds on average in terms of capacity," Campbell said.
There was one night in February, he said, where the system might have reached capacity, but even then, no one was turned away.
According to their figures, they were aware of 165 people living outdoors back in October, that list has now shrunk to 20.
The city's homelessness consultant said a lot of other jurisdictions have been taking note on how the city was able to get a lot of departments working together on this issue.
"That has definitely been really helpful in getting a lot of entities on the same page and a shared mission," said Iain DeJong, of OrgCode Consulting.
While progress is being made, there is still the issue of chronic homelessness in the city. People continue to move into Greater Sudbury, as many of those identified as homeless during the last point-in-time survey weren't from the city.
With that, there are challenges they know they will have to face.
"The challenges are human challenges. The challenges that individuals present with in terms of their own wellness, trauma, addictions issues, mental health issues," said Ray Landry, of the Homelessness Network.
City officials have been helping people get services in communities they might have been heading to and also reuniting people with their families.
Spencer said it's important to look at all angles because a 'one-size' fits all approach doesn't work.
