Who are the non-profit housing board of directors for Centreville 1 and 2? Who manages the funds from city coffers that go to the operation of the apartment complex owned by a non-profit housing corporation?
Sudbury.com would like to tell you, but we can’t find them.
Centreville is a housing complex located at 285 Lourdes Street and though it is funded by the City of Greater Sudbury, it is run by an independent board of directors. The board, in turn, contracts the oversight of the building to Luxor Management Inc.
But instead of easily finding the list of non-profit’s the board of directors, which should be publicly available information, Sudbury.com has had to go to the lengths of sending a Freedom of Information request to the city.
That effort doesn’t look so promising though. When Sudbury.com filed the request on Nov. 4, we were told it likely wouldn’t amount to much: a “non-responsive record” it was called, and we were told there likely wouldn’t be any information because the board is not employed by the city and housing services has no “direct contact” with them.
Sudbury.com found it curious the city does not have the names of the people who manage the taxpayer funds allotted from the city’s housing services department? Since it receives funds provided by local taxpayers, who makes the decisions about how those taxpayer dollars are spent on the building? Who is accountable?
This is what we know so far.
In August, we attempted to learn why the lone elevator at the building had been inoperable for almost nine months. We contacted the board of directors, as listed on the corporate profile maintained by the Government of Ontario.
We began with an email sent to the contact information listed on the city’s website, which was rejected and sent back after three attempts. “Your message couldn't be delivered to [email protected]. Their inbox is full, or it's getting too much mail right now,” read the return message.
The phone number listed there leads to Mallette-Goring, a real estate company in Sudbury that specializes in commercial leasing, investment sales and property management, according to information on its website. While that extension leads to a Mallette-Goring representative, no one from the firm has returned Sudbury.com’s call.
There are six names listed as active directors for Centreville. We spoke with the first, David Cacciotti, who said he resigned from the board more than 10 years ago and was upset to learn he was still listed. Another active director died in 2024. Two others are in their 80s, at least, and one other is listed as living in the building, but the tenants Sudbury.com spoke with do not know her.
We also asked Luxor Property Management, who would not give us the names, stating privacy concerns for the “volunteer board.”
The next step was to follow the money, as they say. We headed to the City of Greater Sudbury.
Would the city know who the board members are?
In an Aug. 27 interview with Cindi Briscoe, the city's manager of housing services, she offered general information about the housing process in Sudbury, and how it has been funded since the housing file was passed from the provincial government to the municipality. More specific to Centreville would be confidential, she said.
She echoed the city’s statement in August that the municipality does not own Centreville, but it does operate using taxpayer funds.
When we told her the names had not been updated, Briscoe said she was surprised. “They are supposed to be filing with the Ministry of Government Services changes to their boards, that's one of the directives that is legislated,” she said.
Sudbury.com asked Briscoe for the names of the Centreville board members, but she said we would have to file a request for the information under the Municipal Freedom of Information Act.
She told Sudbury.com her staff completes “operational reviews on these non-profits” to ensure that they are compliant with the Housing Services Act “and when they are in contravention, my staff go back in to ensure that they've done what they needed to do,” said Briscoe. “So, yeah, I'm just gonna park that there. That's what they're supposed to do.”
In the meantime, we have continued to check the public records monthly for updates regarding the board of director’s names, the last time on Nov. 4. They remain the same.
City says ‘We do not have those records’
We submitted the freedom of information act request on Nov. 4, asking for information about the funding, and the names of the official board of directors, who they’d likely be communicating with in some capacity. When we contacted the clerk's office to pay the $5 fee, the clerk asked for time to see if the names would be a “routine disclosure” i.e. public information, or something in need of a request under the Municipal Freedom of Information Act.
Just one hour later, we received our answer.
The staff member called back on behalf of housing services at the city to say “after some conversations,” that the Centreville board of directors, “aren’t hired by the City of Greater Sudbury, or employed by the city, or paid by the city, they're not employees, so that wouldn't be our information,” she said. “You'd have to do a corporate search for that information.”
In addition to the names of the board members, we requested information pertaining to the funding. The staff member told us that housing services has no “direct contact” with them, and
“because it's a not-for-profit agency, you would have to reach out to Centreville, and they would be in custody of those records. We do not have those records,” she said.
When Sudbury.com detailed the attempts we already made, the staff member told us:
“It would be the responsibility of the corporation to update their reports annually. So if they haven't updated those in a number of years, then I mean the responsibilities on them, not the City of Greater Sudbury.”
She said she would be happy to file the request, “but the only thing I fear is that it would be a non-responsive record, just because we don’t have those records at all, they aren't our responsibility to hold or keep, or potentially we may not even have communication with them.”
We accepted, filed the request and paid the $5 fee.
Under the freedom of information act, the city has 30 days to make the records available, deny access, or notify of any delays, and they have the right to extend the time if the request is large or requires extensive work.
Sudbury.com has spent the past few months reporting on issues plaguing non-profit housing buildings in the city. For more coverage of our reporting on the problems tenants say they have at Twelve Elgin, another non-profit, you can find stories here, here, here and here.
Jenny Lamothe covers vulnerable and marginalized populations, as well as housing issues and the justice system for Sudbury.com.