Sudbury’s Lorraine Street transitional housing complex costs are rising

According to a recent report, the cost of the proposed transitional housing complex in a residential neighbourhood has increased by $4 million.

Recently, the cost of the facility went from $10 million to $14.4 million.

After 350 residents in the area signed a petition last year saying they think the complex should be moved to the downtown core Ward 5 Councillor Robert Kirwan says he agrees and that he can’t justify the city paying the increased cost.

“We were prepared to spend $10 million. A $14.4 million budget is a 40 per cent increase. That is hard to justify. It’s far more than we were expecting to pay.”

Kirwan said he is opposed to using the over $7 million that’s being provided by Ottawa for this project and he agrees with nearby residents that it should go elsewhere.

“It’s the wrong place for transitional housing project but it’s the right place for an affordable housing project,” said Kirwan.

“The wrap-around services are just not there. You have the Elgin Street Mission downtown, you’ve got the methadone clinic, you’ve got other doctor clinics, you’ve got the Samaritan Centre. All of the other social services that people need in order to transition into living in a regular normal setting are just not there.”

Ward 4 Councillor Geoff McCausland says a transitional housing complex is needed in the city, and he says he hopes this moves forward as planned as transitional housing.

“That’s the identified gap that we have in our community and we really need that place where when people are ready to ask for help or reach out, that we have somewhere where they can go,” said McCausland.

He says he does not see this project costing more than $12 million.

“It’s escalated to about 12 million is the bid that we got back that’s being recommended by staff. Stats can has shown that residential construction is up 25 per cent from last year,” said McCausland.

“That report says $14.4 million, that $2.4 million is just contingency incase something went really wrong. The reality is, with modular construction... There’s so much less that can go wrong, we should really be looking at $12 million figure.”

McCausland said in addition to the $7.4 million being provided, there is also another million coming from an Ontario program.

He also says, a total of 28 companies were interested and seven companies actually placed bids to build this housing facility.

This report, which can be found here, is set to be discussed on Aug. 9 both at the finance meeting as well as the city council meeting.