Sudbury's Go-Give Project says it's expanding further north to Timmins, Ont.

A Sudbury outreach group says it 's putting morevolunteers onSudbury'sstreets, to ensurethat the city's unhoused people have naloxone, clothing and company in the late hours of the night.

Since the early days of the pandemic in 2020, volunteers with theGo-Give Project have been offering comfort and connection between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.

"You can have your nights that are very quiet, particularly, in the beginning of the month when checks have come out," executive director Evie Ali said.

"On a busy night, we might see 50 individuals in the community and maybe three or four house calls," she said.

We have responded to over 60 overdoses to date.Evie Ali, executive director of the Go-Give Project

But Ali said that the organization's biggest role has been mitigating violent and crisis situations.

"Our overdose response has been very critical. We have responded to over 60 overdoses to date," she said.

"All but three have been reversed. So that's [about] 60 lives that have been saved between the hours of 9 p.m. and 2 a.m."

Now,the outreach group has plans to expand further north, to Timmins, Ont., Ali said, through a collaboration with another outreach group called DIY Community Health.

"When we first started in 2020 we were seeing approximately 85 individuals during the night," Ali said.

"During this time we were also seeing a lot more overdoses during the nighttime," she said.

Urgent services

Ali said the overnightmobile approach is an essential service for many homeless people who struggle with substance use and mental health challenges.

"It doesn't matter if you're going to Sault Ste Marie, Timmins, North Bay, you will find a gas station that is open and maybe a Tim Hortons, but you will never find an urgent service besides the E.R.," she said.

Ali said that for the first two years it operated, it was able to run solely through donations from the Sudbury community.

But in late 2022, it received a $150,000 donation from the TrottierFamily Foundation in Montreal. She said one of their founding members has some personal connections to Sudbury and decided to give back to the community.

Sudbury and beyond

Ali said that money allowed the group to hire five people, as well as, maintain an office space to provide some security for volunteers and staff.

"It's been a blessing," she said.

Ali said the group has been travelling back and forth to Timmins since last November. She said the group will be launching a pilot project in the city beginning next week.

The organization, she said, is hoping to assess whatthe specific needs are in Timmins, as well as,how their challenges may be similar to that of Sudbury's.

"It really comes down to the mobile capabilities and the coverage that you're able to reach," Ali said.

Jason Sereda, is one of the founding volunteers with a new group in Timmins called DIY Community Health. He used to be the executive director of Living Space, the city's homeless shelter.

The new group, Sereda said,is currently doing outreach work similar to that of Go-Give, on Thursday evenings in Timmins.

'Really impressed'

"We're focusing on where we see the biggest need right now," he said.So far, Sereda said the the core group of volunteers includes about 15 people.

Sereda said Go-Give and DIYCommunity Health first connected last fall, to see what it would looklike if the two groups collaborated.

"We were really impressed with how they were able to mobilize resources," Sereda said. He said the collaboration "makes sense."

More and more groups emerging

As well-intended as they may be,the emergence of new outreach groups have also been a point of concern.

In his report, about Sudbury's homelessness challenges, published in 2021, Iain De Jong noted that there are a number of volunteer groups in Sudbury that have taken it upon themselves to provide food, supplies and other services to those experiencing homelessness.

At the time, De Jong cautionedthat well-meaning but untrained volunteers can cause more harm than good, "greatly interfering" with efforts to provide a coordinated response.