By Kayla Bruch

Fed. Gov. donates $295K to charities

Jan 31, 2015 | 11:02 AM

A contribution of $295,000 over the next five years, for the Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS) is said to have a great impact on lowering the number of homeless people in Prince Albert.

On Friday afternoon, Randy Hoback, Member of Parliament (MP) for Prince Albert, announced the donation on behalf of the honourable Candice Bergen, Minister of State for Social Development.

Donna Brooks is the Executive Director with the YWCA and a proponent and deliverer of the new Housing First program. The YWCA of Prince Albert is receiving $85,000 to operate a 10 bed, cold weather shelter and to begin implementing a Housing First initiative.

“Since the Homelessness Partnering Strategy started we have been able to open Our House. We [have also] added beds at our central avenue shelter [and] we’ve added beds at our, Our House shelter. They’ve made an absolute huge impact in the city of Prince Albert in that way,” she said. “We couldn’t have done that without that funding.”

Hoback said since launching the strategy in 2007 the government has not only helped places like the YWCA, they have also helped around 3,400 Canadians struggling with homelessness.

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“With education and training [the government has] helped over 32,000 find work and created more than 5,770 new shelter beds,” he said. “One of the great strengths of the strategy is that it encourages cooperation between all levels of government [and] provides the private sector, community organizations to find innovative solutions.”

Brian Howell Manager of Riverbank Development Corporation said “the federal government has been active in the area of homelessness for many years in Prince Albert and in smaller communities across the country.”

“The funding has generally come in two year increments and has been directed towards projects that work to alleviate homelessness and it’s always had a focus on developing community partnerships and increasing community involvement in the struggle against homelessness,” Howell said. “So a real desire not to have a program that’s just funded but rather one that agendas community involvement and participation.”

The HPS has been renewed for five years, only this year the government, community groups and the Riverbank Development Corporation will be focusing on the Housing First model.

“The funding…for these organizations was made possible through the government of Canada investing thorough the Homelessness Partnering Strategy and more than 1.8 million over five years in the Riverbank Development Corporation,” said Hoback. “Short term crisis responses through shelters and hospital emergency rooms do not solve problems of chronic homelessness. We had to rethink our approach.”

Brooks said that homelessness is often the end result of some other very large issues and without stable housing these issues can be more difficult to resolve.

“The Housing First model is based on… you need a stable house and a stable home before you can actually start to work on the symptoms that led you to homelessness in the first place,” she said.

Dave Hobden, manager of Housing First for Prince Albert said they welcome people into their program no matter their current situation and then ease them into housing, all the while providing support.

“It’s so difficult for people to address things like addictions, mental health issues, even taking their medication if they don’t have a home,” he said.

Early this December Hobden began working as the manager of First Housing and said since then they have already housed five people.

“We’re kind of flying a bit by the seat of our pants but it’s been very successful and it’s been really good to see the community support as well,” he said. “It has been incredibly successful in Prince Albert so far.”

For each client they approve for housing it can cost up to $9,000. Hobden said with that high of a cost the money from the government will help them tremendously.

“It’s going to make a huge impact not only in their lives but also financially,” he said. “Just to put them in a house is not going to be successful we have to look at all of those other things, the addictions, the social part of it, [and] how we can involve them in things in the community.”

First Housing has a low number of clientele and Hobden said it’s because they are very involved with the people they are currently housing.

“These were five chronically homeless individuals that did not have a house at all before that, we believe this program is really going to make a difference,” said Brooks. “It will sure put a big dent in it [homelessness].”

Hoback said Brooks is right in saying the program won’t put an end to homelessness but it will help.

“There’s always a situation where you never get to 100 per cent, but there’s no reason not to strive towards that and that’s what we’re doing,” said Hoback. “We [the government] want to equip and empower people so they can find healing and recovering and they can gain skills to find employment to become full participants and members of society.”

Also announced the Prince Albert Community Housing Society will receive $210,000 to purchase two transitional housing units.

kbruch@panow.com

On Twitter: @KaylaBruch1