Sudbury’s Welcoming Streets initiative seeing success in first 6 weeks of program, partners say

Sudbury Welcoming Streets program sees success Community partners say Sudbury's Welcoming Streets initiative seeing success in first 6 weeks of program. Angela Gemmill has the latest.

It has been almost six weeks since a new initiative began in Sudbury’s downtown to deal with social disorder.

‘Welcoming Streets’ is a partnership between Downtown Sudbury and the outreach agency called the Go-Give Project. There is also collaboration from the City of Greater Sudbury and the Greater Sudbury Police Service (GSPS).

'Welcoming Streets' initiative - Ali Farooq A new program is seeing success in helping downtown business owners when they have a social disorder call. For the past six weeks trained outreach workers have been responding to social order calls from business owners as part of the 'Welcoming Streets' initiative. Ali Farooq with the Go-Give Project takes a call as part of the 'Welcoming Streets' initiative on March 13, 2024. (Angela Gemmill/CTV News Northern Ontario)

When there is an issue, a downtown business owner calls the Go-Give phone number – their team has fielded about 40 calls since the program started on Feb 1.

“It’s just a conversation: ‘What’s going on? What do you need?” said Ali Farooq with the Go-Give Project.

“To try and get them to the resources that are most suitable at that given time. It could be a coffee or a snack or something like that, just to entice them to come away from the business, have a conversation and usually by the end of it they’re ready to move along.”

Ali Farooq The 'Welcoming Streets' initiative provides a resource for downtown business owners in Sudbury to call when someone is either in distress, sleeping on the street or property or other issues arise that may not require the attention of emergency responders. Ali Farooq with the Go-Give Project told CTV News that it is often only a conversation that is need to get people to the support they need. (Angela Gemmill/CTV News Northern Ontario)

The initiative provides a resource for downtown business owners to call when someone is either in distress, sleeping on the street or property, if there is a concern for safety or other issues like drug paraphernalia, or during heat or cold alerts.

“The vast majority of cases it’s just somebody that’s having a rough day or is in a rough state and the police aren’t the right answer,” said Jeff MacIntyre with Downtown Sudbury.

“The small business doesn’t have time to slowly have a conversation with somebody, so now we have somebody we can call to be able to have that conversation and be able to have a better outcome.”

Jeff MacIntyre Jeff MacIntyre with Downtown Sudbury told CTV News that in many situations calling the police is not the right option and now the 'Welcoming Streets' initiative provides an option for local businesses to have someone slow down to address the issue and maybe have better outcomes. (Angela Gemmill/CTV News Northern Ontario)

“We do try to report back just to say this is what we did and this is what went on,” said Shannon Scodnick with Go-Give Project.

“It’s always just great learning opportunities on both ends to see what they’re facing, and then just for them to get a better picture of what actually happened afterwards.”

Before this program, many of these social calls were directed to police, despite most issues not being criminal in nature.

“We are pleased to see the initial success of the initiative and we will continue to work with our community partners to ensure the appropriate response to address social disorder issues in our community,” said GSPS, in a statement to CTV News.

Business owners have been told to contact GSPS or EMS if the individual is unresponsive, if there is a theft or if there is extreme escalation of the situation.

Downtown businesses can contact the ‘Welcoming Streets’ program from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday to Friday and 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. on weekends.

Officials said the initiative has funding for the next year, but the partners are hopeful it can become a permanent fixture in the downtown.