As children, we were always told to not spend time in downtown Sudbury because of the dangers that surround that area: Crime, drugs, prostitution, you name it. As teenagers, we have curiosity and tend to go against what our parents say, and that’s exactly what lead to our adventure. Our story starts on a Tuesday night, around 10pm. We were suffering from our own boredom with the lack of nighttime activities available on a weekday night in Greater Sudbury, therefore we decided that the only logical thing to do would be to befriend some « crackheads ». It’s not hard to find « crackheads » downtown, all you have to do is go to memorial park and wander various alleyways, which is what started our adventure. While this might be a horrible idea to most, it was to us too, but since we were both used to drug use and fairly social teens, we thought the worse that would happen would be that we would get attacked and run away to the safety of my car a couple streets down. What we would experience was far from what our initial expectation was.
We started talking to a man sitting in a alleyway named Randall, and what started off as a friendly conversation turned out to be the start of a complex question: what could the city of Greater Sudbury do to reduce crime and the homeless population in Sudbury. Randall was in his 60’s, relying on heroin to get him through the day and the pain of his illness. Addicted to drugs since 1984, we learned a lot from our first encounter. Firstly, most of the people we talked to in downtown Sudbury are addicted to some sort of substance. Randall talked to us about how many of these homeless people get their money from stealing and/or selling drugs and making a better profit by adding various materials to the drugs, making them more dangerous for users. A solution that he suggested to us was handing out clean drugs, that way it eliminates the need to steal. He also suggested a safer injection site in downtown Sudbury, since that’s where most drug users spend their time, instead of the location at 24 energy court, a location that is fairly far from the core of downtown Sudbury. Many people can’t access that site due to being « dope sick » a illness cause by the lack of drugs that leaves the user in immense physical and mental pain.
The next person we stumbled upon was a man in his 40’s named « tinkle ». He escorted us around memorial park and introduced us to various other homeless people. Everyone we met was kind, respectful and not dangerous at all. He told us as long as you show respect, everyone is kind. Hostility and disrespect is what incites violence. The only way for the homeless to make money ethically in this area is with the YMCA, a program that takes 8 homeless individuals to clean up the city of needles, and give them 20$ as compensation. Tinkle suggested more programs like this to curb the amount of crime that people commit to earn money. The only other way to earn money more ethically is to collect cans and beg on corners, but this isn’t enough for the amount of people who want to make money. Tinkle said that in the past 2 weeks, 5 people he has known have died, and this number skyrockets in the winter, when surviving becomes extremely difficult. The homeless have nowhere to stay, with shelters often being overcrowded, which leads to many wandering the streets. Good also becomes a problem at night since the only areas open are Sub World and Pizza Pizza, a bit far from memorial park. The bus station downtown offers a vending machine and bathroom, but homeless usually aren’t allowed to use these services. There are no bathrooms open and most establishments downtown don’t let the homeless use their bathrooms, which leads them to use the alleyways and streets if they aren’t close to the little amount of homeless shelters and service centres. This causes a big public health problem and leads to illness for the people living on those streets. Many of the homeless have physical and mental disabilities but don’t go to the hospital because of the disrespect, prejudice and lack of help because they are homeless, which leads to them suffering from their injuries and illnesses. The rehab program in Sudbury also isn’t an option for many of these individuals since it’s too easy to get drugs into this facility.
What we observed the city does is that there are many security guards and police that prevent the homeless from sleeping on the streets. They have harm reduction services that sometimes offer water, meals and safe disposal of drug paraphernalia, but this is hard to find and doesn’t happen as often as it should. The only water fountain in memorial park gets shut off at 11, making it hard to find drinkable water after that time if the harm reduction workers aren’t around.
What we gathered that could be better is:
- A safe injection/consumption drug centre in downtown Sudbury
- Potable water offered at all hours
- Places for the homeless to stay at night to keep them off the streets
- A public washroom open to the homeless at all hours of the day
- Small day Jobs to deter crime
- Area that offers food closer to memorial park that can be used by the homeless
- Health services specifically for the homeless
The people we met downtown were not « crackheads » at all. They were just normal people trying to survive in a place that doesn’t allow them to thrive. It’s like a community, Everyone that’s homeless in this area knows and helps each other navigate difficult times. While some people are addicts and don’t want help getting sober, they still deserve to live a life with less struggle. Addiction is a mental illness and why try to punish the ones who will continue to do drugs. They are still people after all and we need to stop treating them as animals. It’s a problem that sadly can’t be solved but we can minimize its effects and curb crime while making downtown Sudbury a safer and better place to live for everyone.
As teens we learned so much from just 2 hours talking to the homeless. The city of Sudbury needs to do better and take suggestions from the source.
