Meet Raymond Landry. He does a job he wishes wasn't necessary.
The co-ordinator of the Homelessness Network in Sudbury, he finds homes for the homeless, leading a team of 24 workers from various disciplines and agencies to address this scourge.
Finding safe, secure and affordable housing for individuals is the first step to tackle related social issues such as addiction, mental illness and crime.
Few people are as qualified for this Herculean task as Landry.
After attending Rayside High School, a French-language secondary school, Landry enrolled in an electronics engineering program, then quickly changed his course of studies to social services, "because I was more of a people person than a numbers person," he said.
"I wanted to help teens and teens in trouble, that was my first interest in social services."
A graduate of Cambrian College’s Social Services diploma program, he continued his studies at l’Université de Hearst, an affiliate of Laurentian University, while working as a child protection worker at the Hearst office of the Children’s Aid Society of Kapuskasing.
Later he worked at Maison Arc-en-ciel, a Francophone youth addictions treatment centre in Opasatika, a small community between Hearst and Kapuskasing, before returning to Sudbury to teach social services at Collège Boréal.
He tackled a new challenge when he joined the team of addictions and mental health workers on Nipissing First Nation, near Sturgeon Falls, and developed their first on-reserve addictions counselling program.
After eight years, he joined the mental health counselling team at Shkagamik-kwe Health Centre in Sudbury, then continued his career at Réseau ACCESS Network where he counselled people living with HIV and Hepatitis C.
He joined Centre de santé communautaire du Grand Sudbury (CSCGS) in 2016 – the lead agency in the five-agency partnership that forms the Homelessness Network. The office is located on Lansing Avenue in New Sudbury.
The homeless situation continues to grow, but Landry is optimistic and takes satisfaction in small successes: housing eight people in December; finding residences for 11 armed forces veterans last year, and the trickle of geared-to-income housing announcements.
"People blame the individual (for homelessness), not systematic limitations," said Landry.
The root cause of homelessness is lack of housing that is affordable for people with low-paying jobs or for those who are dependent on social assistance or small seniors' pensions.
The living wage for Sudbury, calculated by the Ontario Living Wage Network, rose to $21.10 per hour for 2025.
Ontario Works (OW) rates haven't seen significant increases since 1995.
While the cost of living has increased by as much as 80 per cent since the 1990s, the federal and provincial governments have reduced spending on social housing, and in 2001, the province gave the responsibilities of funding and administration of most non-profit housing to municipalities.
The city's most recent Point-in-Time Homelessness Report found there were 505 persons identified as experiencing homelessness in a shelter, transitional housing, and unsheltered on the night of Oct. 8, 2024.
But the problem is greater than this with undocumented precarious situations, people living in overcrowded apartments or couch surfing at friends' places.
"It would take a superhuman effort to lift yourself out of poverty these days," Landry said.
"We do not all start at the same start line. There are equality issues, such as generational poverty or access to resources, that affect people trying to move up in the world.
"There are frustrations … but it helps to have appreciation for what I can do, not to fight where I am just banging my head against the wall," he said.
How does he avoid burnout?
"To find balance in a stressful world and vocation, I have found community theatre, acting in stage plays, musicals, over the past 15 years a great catalyst,” Landry said. “My spouse (Helen) has been involved in theatre decades longer than me and it's a great way to spend time together. We have acted with several groups over the years.
"I have played music (guitar, harmonica, vocals) since my teen years. The 'garage/basement' band I have been playing with for the past eight years or so jam every week for fun's sake and our enjoyment of classic pop and rock era music.
"The group was originally called Les Cokrels (Cockroaches) back in the 1980s and 1990s and after a few iterations, we now call ourselves the Nickel Roosters (Les Coqs Nickel).
"No serious stuff there," he said.
Vicki Gilhula is a freelance writer. People You Should Know About is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.