SASKATOON — Mark Arcand looked exasperated and frustrated when he addressed local journalists at the Saskatoon Tribal Council on Wednesday, Sept. 11, about the city’s plan to operate an emergency shelter.
The city is looking to turn the former Saskatchewan Transportation Company office on 210 Pacific Avenue into a temporary shelter with 30 to 40 beds as temperatures drop to single digits, signalling the end of summer.
The STC Chief, who led the establishment of the Emergency Wellness Centre that is now located on Fairmont Drive in the Fairhaven neighbourhood, said the proposed shelter is insufficient as it would only help a limited number of people.
“The number of homeless people we see in Saskatoon, we see an average of probably 200 plus individuals that need [basic] services,” said Arcand, who helped set up the EWC that currently houses 106 individuals, including eight families with 17 children.
“These are based on facts. I talked with our colleague, Salvation Army’s [executive director] Gordon Taylor. They ran the warm-up shelter at St. Mary’s where they average 135 people a night to a maximum of 200.”
He added that he is advocating for the city to have warming sites because the city could expect more people to suffer in the extreme cold of winter since the proposed emergency shelter will only help 30 people.
“We have the facts and data that say the Salvation Army had 135 to 200 people per night. Do the math. Where are those other people going to go? I believe another homeless count will be done in October,” said Arcand.
“Right now, I believe there is around 550 [homeless] in 2022. I think it will jump between 700 to 800 people. The Salvation Army [can accommodate] 80 people, we have 106, and a warming site can have 135 to 200. That’s already 400 people that we can help this winter.”
He added that around 360 people will have to look for another place to keep themselves warm since the Pacific Avenue emergency shelter only has 30 to 40 beds. The STC wants to operate shelters that make a difference in people’s lives.
Arcand said Taylor, despite losing funding from the Saskatoon Housing Initiatives Partnership, is working to identify possible warming sites, like getting St. Mary’s up and running again in time for the colder months.
That’s why the more practical solution is to have warming shelters or sites instead of a facility that could only accommodate a limited number of homeless people, he said.
"The solution is that we have funding from the province with that 30-bed shelter. Let us redirect the money to help more people in the meantime. We have a solution for this; we are not just complaining,” said Arcand.
“There’s a solution to this, where the province can step up and say, ‘hold on, let us use the money and build a facility that has a proper location that would help more people.’”
