By Caitlin Brezinski

Cold weather shelter receives funding

Nov 14, 2014 | 4:56 PM

With the weather becoming colder, some people in Prince Albert have real challenges to face. Having a place to spend the night is one of those. 

The cold weather shelter at Prince Albert’s YWCA Our House seeks to ease that burden this winter. An official announcement was made at the YWCA on Friday regarding funding for the shelter.

“For those that are more vulnerable, they often don’t have a place to stay that’s warm, dry, safe,” said MLA Victoria Jurgens. 

The ten bed shelter, which opened last year, is receiving a combined $55,000 from the Governments of Canada and Saskatchewan, $25,000 from the Ministry of Social Services and $5000 from the Ministry of Justice. 

Last year, four ministries, in addition to the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) gave funding towards the project.

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Donna Brooks, executive director for the YWCA, said she didn’t know how the funding was going to work out this year.

“When the funding came through from both the provincial government and the government of Canada, I was much relieved and very excited that we could offer this program again,” she said.

The cold weather shelter has ten beds in addition to the YWCA’s 90 beds offered year round.  Brooks said there are reasons people are not able to access their regular shelter beds, those being not having enough room or intoxication.  She said the shelter did saved lives last year.   

“The year before we opened, there was actually four individuals that froze to death and that really spoke to the need of something being in place and last year we didn’t have any freezing deaths,” she said. 

Brooks said last year, they had almost 200 separate individuals use the cold weather shelter and expects that number to double this year. 

“It’s really amazing how many people need it,” she said. 

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