Sudbury homeless count survey aims to tailor city services

Morning North7:31How many homeless people in Sudbury?

The city of Greater Sudbury is undergoing a head count of homeless people. It hopes to provide better services for them.The CBC's Olivia Stefanovich spoke with some of the organizers of the headcount and the people who will benefit from the survey.A project is underway to determine the true number of homeless people in Sudbury.

The goal is to use the information to improve city services.

The city is working with researchers to find out how many people are living on the streets. They're reaching out to social agencies to figure out who's homeless and why.

Gail Spencer, the co-ordinator for the shelters and homelessness program at the city, said they hope “to tailor services specifically to a certain population depending on their needs,” she said.

“This will be something that will help us to identify where's our largest population, where's the greatest need.”

The homeless count survey is being conducted in Sudbury and outlining areas, including Chelmsford, Garson, Valley East and Walden.

The federal government is paying $29,000 for the survey. The Poverty, Homelessness and Migration research project at Laurentian University is also contributing.

Organizers hope the results will also challenge the stereotypes about who lives on the streets.

​Laurentian University professor Henri Pallard said he often asks his students to describe a homeless person. The response he usually gets is “a male between the ages of 25 and 45.”

But Pallard says the statistics he's seen are more varied than that: women and children represent half of Sudbury's homeless demographic.

"It should be very,very shocking to us that we have children with parents who are homeless,” he said.

Pallard's research team will sift through data and conduct interviews to understand who's living on the streets.

A student working on the project said she hopes it will shed new light on the matter.

"I really hope that this information is going to help the people in Sudbury realize that it is in fact a big issue and not close their eyes to what's happening on our streets,” Marissa Sarrazin said.

The study results will be given to the city to improve social services and develop a housing strategy. The information will also help social agencies, like the Corner Clinic, where Lianne Bergeron works.

"If, in Sudbury, it reveals that there is actually a lot of homeless for families and women and children, then we need to maybe look at what measures we've put in place and maybe adapt,” Bergeron said.

Previous estimates suggest there are about 400 to 600 homeless people in Sudbury.