The City of Greater Sudbury is hiring for the newly created position of Housing Services and Homelessness director.
The job posting went up recently, prompting Sudbury.com to ask city CAO Shari LItchterman about it following Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The new position is drawing from existing budgets via staff restructuring,
“Homelessness has grown in terms of workload, from a side of the desk job to now a major focal point for the organization,” Lichterman said, noting that although much of this work is already being undertaken, the new director position will help push it forward as a stronger priority.
Further, she said linking the Housing Services and Homelessness teams together, which both have approximately 15 staff each, makes sense when it comes to the city’s goal of shifting homeless residents into housing.
The new hire will report to Community Well-being general manager Tyler Campbell and, according to its job description, will provide “oversight, legislative accountability in compliance with the Housing Services Act, and overall operational leadership for the delivery of housing and homelessness programs including social housing, affordable housing, emergency shelter, homelessness prevention and supportive housing programs.”
A key goal will be to “secure funding and expand affordable housing and homelessness prevention initiatives."
Housing Services staff distribute provincial funding to public housing and not-for-profits which oversee geared-to-income units, while the city’s Homelessness team consists of front-line staff such as client navigators who strive to link people experiencing homelessness with housing.
By tying both groups of staff under the same director, Lichterman said, the city will “add that layer of proactive planning,” which will play a key role in following through with the city’s plan to bring a functional end to homelessness by 2030.
The 40-unit Lorraine Street transitional housing complex is a key example of what this planning can lead to, she said, noting that whoever fills the newly created director role will be charged with leading municipal efforts to secure the equivalent of at least two more such facilities.
The Lorraine Street project houses chronically homeless residents, linking them with 24/7 services in an effort to help guide them toward permanent community housing.
This, Lichterman said, points to the direct link between homelessness and housing which the new director will oversee.
“There’s so much funding going through on both sides that we want to have a good eye overall for the work being done,” she said.
Meanwhile, the city has been overseeing a sanctioned encampment site at Energy Court alongside a 24/7 warming centre run by the outreach organization The Go-Give Project in the old supervised consumption site building.
“We’re there every day trying to figure out how we can help people who are there, but also help them get out of there,” Lichterman said, adding that the ultimate goal is for there not to be an encampment at all.
“In the meantime, how do we keep them safe, how do we keep them warm, give them access to showers, so there’s lots of activity out there,” she said.
“It’s not a perfect solution, but we’re continuing to try to figure out what we need to do to improve it for the people in the area, in the encampment, but also the residents and businesses in the neighbourhood.”
So far, the city has successfully relocated three encampment residents to the Lorraine Street transitional housing complex, and are working with organizations such as The Go-Give Project to get more people out of tents.
The city’s next step at Energy Court will be creating a station, perhaps by punking down a trailer, so there can be a more consistent security presence on site.
The city’s job posting through recruitment firm Odgers Canada closes on Dec. 19, and Lichterman said she anticipates having someone lined up by early February.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.