Saskatoon mayor sets special council meeting on Saskatoon Tribal Council emergency shelter

A special meeting of Saskatoon city council will be held in the next few days to debate a proposed 50-bed temporary emergency shelter to be set up in the city's downtown.

The shelter would be run by the Saskatoon Tribal Council in an attempt to deal with growing numbers of homeless people in the city.

At a committee meeting on Tuesday, Mayor Charlie Clark said the emergency meeting was needed to begin placing people into the shelter as quickly as possible, rather than waiting another two weeks until the next city council meeting.

"Under the circumstances and given the cold weather and given what we've been told by the tribal chief, if this does pass through committee it would be my intention to call a special council meeting," Clark said, "just so we're not waiting day after day for an administrative procedure."

The City of Saskatoon has offered an empty office building on 1st Avenue N. as the site, which was chosen after a lengthy search for buildings to house the 24-hour/seven-day-a-week shelter.

Tribal Chief Mark Arcand told councillors it was essential to get the shelter running as quickly as possible.

"Our Saskatchewan winters are probably the worst place to live when you don't have a roof over your head," Arcand said.

Arcand said a team of realtors scoured the city for a suitable place to set up the shelter, and looked at everything from unused industrial buildings to church buildings as a potential solution. However, the owners of the buildings were either unwilling to enter into a short-term lease or the buildings were not suitable.

The tribal chief said he understood there was some opposition to placing the shelter in the downtown core, but said this was the best option to a significant problem.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat anything here when I talk about organizations or individual people who always want to say, 'Yes, we want to help, but not in our backyard,'" he said.

"That is very unfortunate to hear, because this is our community, and it's Indigenous people and non-Indignenous people coming together to solve an issue, for our people to have a quality of life."

Arcand is calling the shelter a wellness centre which would be staffed with elders and counsellors, and would offer people food and laundry services. The tribal council also plans to hire two commissionaires to patrol the area.

The tribal council has asked the federal government for $1.4 million to run the shelter until Apr. 30, 2022. It has not received a formal response yet.

The city committee voted to approve leasing the building to the tribal council, paving the way for a full vote at city council.

Serious issue

Coun. Hilary Gough, the city's lead on community safety and well-being, said the city's homelessness strategy has been under significant strain over the last year.

She said the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with changes to the provincial social assistance program and a growing addictions issue, has led to a sharp increase in homelessness.

Gough said the homelessness strategy is broad, working on everything from finding homes for people to dealing with evictions, as well as providing warming stations and shelter housing under the cold weather strategy.

"The effects of COVID-19 on that work have been massive," Gough said. "Those organizations have had to shift their focus to keeping people safe through a pandemic."

At the committee meeting, fire Chief Morgan Hackl said there has been a noticeable increase in the amount of people living outside. He said the fire department has seen a 20-per-cent increase in incidents that they respond to.

The fire department has also started an emergency operations centre to deal with issues around homeless encampments.

So far this year, teams of Saskatoon firefighters, as well as the Saskatoon Tribal Council's Saweyihtotan program, have made 75 visits to homeless encampments. Twenty-nine people have accepted some level of support.

An official date for the special council meeting has not been set yet.