REGINA - A significant financial boost has been provided to the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District's Regina Street Team.
The Government of Saskatchewan announced Thursday it is providing $205,000 to the Regina Street Team to extend its services to more neighbourhoods in Regina beyond the downtown core.
The Regina Street Team launched back in May. The $205,000 covers the need for this year, but on an annualized basis the funding will come to $325,000. This was included as part of the provincial budget towards outreach services.
The announcement was made at Pat Fiacco Plaza including dignitaries such as Minister of Social Services Gene Makowsky and Mayor Sandra Masters, as well as several representatives from the Regina Street Team.
According to the government’s news release, the Regina Street Team has served as a first point of contact for unhoused individuals in the community to connect them to services such as shelters, supportive housing, detox, recovery, stabilization and other programs.
Mayor Masters praised the work the Street Team has been able to do since its launch earlier this year in developing relationships and connecting to supports, and reporting back on any barriers those individuals are experiencing.
"I think it’s a very good investment," Mayor Masters said. "I think when the Downtown BID asked city council, and city council helped create the Community Safety Patrol which evolved into the Regina Street Team, to deal with the complex needs of the vulnerable folks on our street, both suffering from substance abuse disorders or its homelessness, or both, or the psychosis some of these drugs are causing — that one-on-one attention that they can create, and create trust in relationships, is massively important for moving folks along the continuum…
“I appreciate that we’ve been able to go back to the province with the data of the points of contact, the connection to services, the folks who make it into shelter, into housing or into treatment, and the folks who were just safer in the streets because of this outreach — we’ve been able to take some of the data back and that’s where you see the investment come back, because we all know more investment needs to be done, but sometimes investment isn’t just money. It’s the people on the street connecting and educating and then coming back to us also.“
"This group, with the meetings I have had and what I have seen… it seemed like a natural fit," Makowsky said to reporters about the funding announcement.
When asked if this money would have been better spent to prevent the issues happening in the first place, Makowsky said “I think we’re doing that. It’s an all-of-the-above approach, and so absolutely we’re doing certainly all we can on the addictions side of things as a government… helping people to connect to services through the ministry, but also great work being done by several CBO‘s (community based organizations) throughout this community, most communities in our province.”
This funding has come at a time when the homeless issue and issues surrounding it, such as addictions and mental health issues, have been a major talking point in Regina.
Lately there has been plenty of discussion at City Hall about a permanent shelter. The topic is set to come back to Executive Committee Sept. 18. Council is to be presented with two alternative sites for a permanent shelter after a proposed location on Albert Street was voted down in June.
The provincial government had previously announced its Provincial Approach to Homelessness last fall which included over $40.2 million in funding over two years to address supportive housing, expand emergency shelter spaces and community safety and outreach response.
When asked what the government was doing to address the issue, Makowsky replied that there were more shelters in Saskatchewan, and in Regina than ever before.
“We’ve been able to expand shelter spaces in the last couple of years,” he said, also pointing to efforts to find a permanent shelter location in Regina and the expansion of Joan’s Place with the YWCA.
Makowsky said this announcement was one example of efforts to strengthen community support services across the province. He added they were providing funding for similar initiatives in other cities including Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Lloydminster.
The opposition New Democrats have weighed in on this latest announcement. In a statement the party's Social Services critic Meara Conway had this to say:
“The Sask. Party has been in government for 17 years. Under Scott Moe’s leadership, we’ve seen homelessness and overdoses skyrocket across our province. The Regina Street Team does excellent work. And it was developed at the municipal level in response to the extreme needs in our community and conditions directly exacerbated by the Sask. Party’s short-term thinking on mental health and addictions, housing, and the broken SIS program. Waiting until three weeks before an election to finally step in to support this work without addressing the underlying causes shows just how out of touch the Sask. Party has become. This fall, it’s time for change.”
