Saskatchewan announces $20M expansion to homelessness strategy

The province is adding funds to help Regina shelters as they prepare for winter. Wayne Mantyka reports.

The Government of Saskatchewan is vowing to expand funding aimed at supporting the province’s homeless population.

Social Services Minister Terry Jensen announced an additional $20-million investment over the next three years to the Provincial Approach to Homelessness (PATH).

“This additional investment will build on programs and services already in place that will provide multi-year funding for community-led responses to homelessness,” Jensen told reporters Wednesday morning.

The new funding will be dispersed in three main areas:

• $12 million for community-led initiatives related to homelessness;
• $4 million for the creation of up to 40 emergency shelter spaces; and,
• $4 million for the creation of up to 60 supportive housing spaces

As part of the announcement, the City of Regina will receive $1.1 million of the new funding, mainly focused on ensuring warming spaces in the city are able to operate 24/7.

“The biggest conversation is around the need to make sure that we’re not kicking people out into the cold. It’s making sure that we have 24/7 support for people,” Regina Mayor Chad Bachynski said. “We have drastically, dangerously cold winters for someone who’s living outside. We need somewhere for them to go to be safe.”

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Admitting that warming shelters are not the solution, but a necessary support for those less fortunate, Bachynski said conversations are ongoing with organizations such as the YWCA, Salvation Army and Regina Treaty Status Indian Services (RTSIS) on what are the next steps in managing the crisis.

“We need to start somewhere, and we can’t bite off everything all at once,” he said.

“So, I think having this as a step to try and get people to a safe place right now as we go into winter, but continuing to make sure that we look at that funding model and that support model and where those resources need to land in terms of ultimately getting people to a place where they can not be living on the street and be living in supportive housing.”

The additional funding will assist organizations such as RTSIS to expand its 55-bed capacity.

“With this additional funding, we’ll be able to operate at our capacity of 55 but then also an extra five spaces for that cold weather strategy,” RTSIS executive director Natasha Kennedy explained. “So, that allows us is to expand when needed in the community and address, I think, some of those ongoing needs.”