Greater Sudbury working to know more about homeless population to offer extra support

Work is underway in the City of Greater Sudbury to have a more complete picture of who is homeless in the city and what types of services they need.

The city is working with the Homelessness Network to develop a "co-ordinated access system" that would allow agencies to share data and to maintain a list of people experiencing homelessness.

Gail Spencer, the co-ordinator of shelters and homelessness with the city, says having access to that information will help the city's vulnerable population.

"Once we get this established, it's going to provide us with valuable data and information about how many people are homeless at any one time in our community, how many are actually experiencing chronic homelessness, how many people we've been able to move to housing, and how many people are returning to homelessness from housing," she explained.

Spencer says the information will also allow people who are homeless to be connected to appropriate services.

"It would also allow us to use a common assessment tool across the sector so that we could prioritize those with the highest needs," she said.

"Whether they were from our shelter, whether they were through the homelessness network, through the hospital or through addiction treatment programs."

Spencer says the data will also be useful for identifying gaps and determining where the city should allocate more resources.

According to the city, the system has an "end goal of reducing chronic homelessness and overall homelessness within the community.

The system is expected to be in place by the end of next year.