Courtyard at Sudbury city hall left in disarray; repairs, cleanup underway

There is cleanup underway at the courtyard outside city hall in Greater Sudbury.

The space outside Tom Davies Square was heavily used over the pandemic by vulnerable members of the community who were accessing the temporary warming and cooling centre next door at 199 Larch Street.

The city set the temporary centre up during the pandemic when local social service agencies were forced to close or reduce their hours.

That temporary centre closed down May 31.

"We did have people coming into contact with some of the infrastructure around the building and causing damage," said Kevin Fowke, general manager of corporate services for the City of Greater Sudbury.

"You know, I'm certainly not casting any aspersions. These were some folks who obviously have severe addiction issues, they're under-housed," he added. 

"They did create some damage throughout the building, so that damage now we're planning to restore, so that we can restore both those meeting rooms inside and some washrooms and the Tom Davies Square courtyard to its former use."

Fowke said city staff fixed the more pressing items immediately, while larger issues will be repaired by contractors.

"Everything from broken windows, doors, graffiti, cleanup of different biohazards, damage from fire we had at one point in the pandemic period, some of our posts and fixtures were damaged, wiring from an electrical point of view that needed to get repaired," he said.

About 600 unionized city staffers work at Tom Davies Square. They're represented by Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4705.

Local president Bryan Keith said over the course of the pandemic, they received regular health and safety complaints about the conditions of the courtyard at city hall.

"We were getting many complaints in regards to the consuming and discarding of drugs and needles on the property, as well as human feces and such," he said.

Keith said most of the complaints subsided at the end of May, when the temporary warming and cooling centre closed down.

"We do obviously rely on and respect our joint health and safety committee that have been working really hard trying to put in policies and procedures along with the city to maintain a safe environment for our members," he said.