Yellowknife's homeless give ideas on how to improve the system
Calls for Inuit-only shelter, making Stanton Territorial Hospital into housing
In advance of a territorial government-led meeting next week with officials from the City of Yellowknife, downtown businesses and NGOs to discuss Yellowknife's homelessness crisis, the CBC went to the Safe Harbour Day Centre to ask homeless people what they themselves think should be done.
Caroline Cochrane, the minister responsible for addressing homelessness, has said the territorial government does not have additional funding for new programs and will need to come up with creative solutions
Here are some ideas by the people most directly affected by Yellowknife's homelessness crisis.
F.L., who did not want to give his full name, says he has been homeless since November 2015. He says he lost his job at one of the territory's diamond mines after he suffered a heart attack and that he is addicted to alcohol and pills.
"Right now they are building a brand new hospital," said F.L. "The old one could be for old folks or homeless people. It's got lots of rooms in there."
James Thrasher, a trained carpenter and an alcoholic, says he likes to work and stay busy.
Thrasher says local governments should create a program to give homeless people an opportunity to earn money.
"In Edmonton, they call it part-time work. You sign in, or they take the first 10 people and they go to work for the day," he said.
"They could do that here too. It would be great if we could do that every day."
Wayne Goose, originally from Kugluktuk, Nunavut, says a run-in with the law brought him to Yellowknife. He wants to go home, but says he has epilepsy and is afraid to live in a remote community without a hospital.
Goose says there are dozens of homeless Inuit men in Yellowknife, and that he's regularly told to "go home" by the local homeless people.
Goose would like a homeless shelter created specifically for Inuit in Yellowknife.
"It's Dene-dominated," he said of the current scene. "There is this ethnic conflict. You could almost make the analogy between Jews and Palestinians.
"If they could build an Inuit shelter for men or an Inuit shelter for women, that would promote or reawaken the identity that is being lost from suffering from alcoholism. I feel that would really help."