Go-Give Project, BIA set to launch new initiative next month

A new initiative is officially launching in Greater Sudbury’s downtown core to help address difficult social situations.

Cedar Street in downtown Sudbury in January 2024. (Alana Everson/CTV News Northern Ontario)The Downtown Sudbury Business Improvement Area known as the BIA is working with the Go-Give Project which will provide outreach workers who will respond to concerns raised by downtown businesses that can be resolved without calling the police through their new Propel Program.

Professional outreach workers with the Go-Give Project will hit the streets on Feb. 1 to address concerns that businesses call in about vulnerable people in the downtown core.

“The goal is to have a very rapid response to any phone calls that we do receive,” said Evie Ali with the Go-Give Project.

“We did pilot the project for about 60 days within the last few months and had great success rates.”

Evie Ali, Go-Give Project,

The goal is to have a very rapid response to any phone calls that we receive. We did pilot the project for about 60 days within the last few months and had great success rates.

Kendra MacIsaac is the co-chair of the BIA and she told CTV News that she supports the initiative.

“We knew that coming out of COVID we definitely had some perception issues in downtown Sudbury,” she said.

“As well as some struggles with the amount of vulnerable person downtown.”

Officials with both organizations said another goal is the decrease non-urgent calls to the police regarding social situations in the downtown core.

“It could look like a variety of different things,” said Ali.

“Sometimes you know there could be concerns for an individual’s well-being near a local establishment or you know maybe even a loitering issue but the goal is essentially to lessen non-emergent calls to police so that they can focus on meaningful police work.”

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The project partners said there will also be an educational element for business owners.

“(Teaching) our downtown business owners and organizations (to) interact with those vulnerable persons where they might not know how to interact with them (and) how to handle them if they are in a place where they are not wanted,” said MacIsaac.

Ali said her team will also provide naloxone training and teach business staff how to respond to more urgent situations if perhaps the Go-Give Project workers are not able to get there immediately.

“(Helping) them deal with some difficult social situations,” she said.

“(Helping) break down some of the stigma that unfortunately does still exist within our community.”

Officials from the BIA said the program was made possible with support from the city and more than $120,000 in funding from the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation.