'The street people are Yellowknife,' advocates say as they push for downtown shelter

Three people pushed back at city council this week in an effort to ensure that the street-involved population have quality access to services in a temporary day shelter.

Neesha Rao, interim executive director with the Yellowknife Women's Society and Nick Sowsun presented at Monday's governance and priorities committee meeting in order to advocate for a temporary day shelter to be located in the city's core.

"The day shelter needs to be downtown," Sowsun said. "It needs to be near the other services such as the Salvation Army, the sobering centre, the women's shelter and all the other services that are only available downtown."

Council showed support for the GNWT Health and Social Services hosting a temporary day shelter at the Aurora College learning centre location on Franklin Avenue between Coyote's Bistro and Lahm Ridge Tower.

Sowsun said that options that have been discussed or considered outside the limits of downtown – locations like the Fieldhouse or the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre parking lot – are a long way from needed amenities.

"These locations are a really far distance in minus 40 degrees," Sowsun said. "When you don't have a car  to get from the Salvation Army to the Fieldhouse, or even the museum, it is a really far distance. And in our opinion, it's unreasonable. It's unreasonable to ask people to go that distance when there are empty buildings downtown. "

Sowsun said that with so many buildings that could be of use in the downtown which sit empty, there shouldn't even be consideration about trailers or Atco-type structures.

"There seems to be this effort to move the people who rely on these services away from downtown so that they're not seen anymore," he said.  "That effort to remove them from downtown is to the detriment of their wellbeing and to the detriment of the usefulness of the shelter. And in my opinion, that's not acceptable."

Rao agreed with Sowsun about the need for using spaces that exist already and pointed out that there are mobility issues with people who need access to downtown services, whether it is mobility issues or walkers.

"I understand that one of council's goals is to protect the safety of the users of the day shelter," she said. "So one way to do that is to minimize the distance that people have to go."

Rao said it isn't economical to build a whole new structure for shelter as has been discussed in past meetings.

Michael Fatt, a former street-involved person who struggled with alcohol and addictions runs the Common Ground employment program, a partnership between the city and the Women's Society.

He said at the meeting he felt that the city-owned Mine Rescue Building, which council shot down as an option last month due to pressure from downtown business, is a good option because it has all of the basic facilities and is close to the police station where shared dialogue can be had.

"I know it probably opposes the commercial (interests) who have stores and businesses around that area, I just want to point out, that doesn't matter where you're going to put the drop-in," he said. "I hate to say this but we're all going to rally around that that area of the city (downtown). It doesn't matter how far you're going to put (a temporary day shelter).

"The further you put it away, the less it will be utilized and I find that they'll just rally around the Centre Square Mall."

He added that based on his own struggles as a street-involved person that leadership needs to be more open in dealing with the human beings that are struggling because they are citizens, too.

"I, as well as the street people are Yellowknife," he said. "We are, we are the people of Yellowknife and we as Yellowknife, have a problem. The issue is, let's deal with our problem, let's take care of our people. These are beautiful guys. We got to cut out the us versus them thinking because they are not them, they're us, this is our problem as a city."