Yellowknife’s newest shelter is a hit.
“The guys are happy, the people are happy for it,” Michael Fatt, perhaps the city’s best-known advocate for street-involved individuals, said. “It’s a hit right now, because at this particular time of year, it’s a very depressing time of year. You’re going to be finding these guys, drinking a little bit heavier, and that’s part of the challenge.”
Fatt, also the president of the Crazy Indians Brotherhood, was joined by dignitaries including Health Minister Julie Green and Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty at an open house at the new temporary day shelter Dec. 9.
Housed in modular units previously used in a work camp and placed at the formner site of the visitors centre at the end of 49 Street, the shelter has been operating since Dec. 6.
Fatt said the shelter clients he’s spoken to appreciate the speed at which it all came together.
“I’ll tell you right now, when these guys come in here, there’s enough space here, they can go in the back, they can lay down,” he said. “They can relax in comfort for at least half a day. They can shed off that cold, ugly feeling.”
Mayor Alty said she expects the shelter to be “well-used.
“When the day shelter was created, it was with the ‘no lives lost in the winter’ philosophy, and that’s what it’s doing, so I think it’s providing that key service in the city,” she said. “It’s great to have the second one open.”
According to Jenna Scarfe, director for mental health and community wellness for the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority, the shelter has been serving around 50 unique indivuduals daily.
“So far that’s been going really well,” said Scarfe. “We haven’t had to turn anybody away.”
Operating hours for the day shelter are from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Inside it provides washroom facilities, laundry, a quiet space with different entertainment items, and a kitchen area, which isn’t up and running yet. The shelter has been going through about 35 catered meals a day; staff there need to undergo food safe training before the in-house kitchen can be used.
“We’ve never run out of meals,” Scarfe said. “We would, for sure, reevaluate that if we were ever in a situation where weren’t ordering enough food but as of right now we have meals left everyday.”
Businesses assisting with catering include but are not limited to the Copperhouse Eatery and Lounge, as well as Javaroma Coffee and Tea.
According to Green the clientele who use the facility, through work done by the City of Yellowknife, are “overwhelmingly Indigenous.”
“They are overwhelmingly either the children of residential school attendees or they attended themselves,” said Green. “So they are in a very vulnerable situation.
“I just can’t tell you how pleased I am to welcome you to a wide-open, functioning, warm, pleasant place to be for our homeless population, in this, the dead of winter, and through the next three years until we get a permanent wellness and recovery centre open downtown.”
