Psst, did you hear? Yellowknife’s new combined sobering center and day shelter opened last week. Yay, that is really good news. I’m excited and I’m sure the people facing homelessness and addictions in our community are excited too.
The sobering center has 27 beds compared to the 20 beds previously offered out of the Salvation Army chapel. The Day Shelter can hold up to 60 men and women compared to 50 before – and it’s all offered out of a newly renovated building. Alright!
No doubt the Salvation Army was happy to provide a place for people to sleep, especially in the winter, but for sure they must be excited to get their chapel back.
The new center is downtown where the people who need the services are. It’s still pretty close to the liquor store, but at least the clients will not be sitting on the center’s steps looking directly at the source of their problems. That was not cool.
The center is not a treatment program; it’s a harm reduction program. Say what? You mean we should not expect people to stop drinking by going there?
Nope. The program aims to reduce the harms coming from drug and alcohol use for people who are not able or not willing to stop using. The big focus is on the people and preventing harm to them, rather than on stopping their drug and alcohol use.
The GNWT will still send people to treatment in the south, which I do not agree with because I think it would be better to have one or two treatment centers in the NWT. However, just know the new center is not meant to replace going to rehabilitation centers.
Services offered
Okay, so what does the combined day shelter and sobering center provide? Very importantly, it provides an opportunity to improve and increase the services that vulnerable people need for their wellness. Yay.
The day shelter gives people a safe place to hang out during the day. Technically, the sobering center is a safe place for non-violent intoxicated people to sleep off the effects of alcohol or drugs – in reality, it’s also a place to crash, if you can't get into other shelters because you’re drunk or if the shelters are full.
The new facility combines the two services and will have increased staffing, lots of bathrooms, showers, and laundry facilities for clients to access. Very cool.
It will also have a case management worker to help clients set goals and connect them with other services. The plan is to also have programming like group therapy for things like healing, anger management, healthy relationships and arts and crafts. Well yaaaaaaa!
The new facility is open 24 hours a day, with nine hours a day when both programs are operating at the same time. The Sobering Centre will house men and women in separately designated spaces and is open from 10 a.m. to 8 a.m.; and the Day Centre is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
All of this is a very positive change for the clients. Woohoo! I really have a hard time watching intoxicated people walking around when it’s thirty below with a cold wind whipping snow around.
I must say it took time to overcome the many problems in setting up the new center, including just finding an appropriate place downtown, but it seems the waiting was well worth it.
Don’t forget, in its first year of operations, the temporary sobering center had 7,000 intakes and was used by 506 people. Of course, this means many people who used the facility used it often.
And the repeat users were probably mostly men, as we’re hearing that 90 per cent of the intakes were men.
Three cheers for the many partners who worked to open this new center, including the Department of Health and Social Services, RCMP, Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority, City of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories Disabilities Council and Advanced Medical Solutions.