SASKATOON — Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Mark Arcand came out with guns blazing to express his frustration with the lack of action by local and provincial officials to address homelessness in the city as the winter weather creeps in. He was reacting to the Point-In-Time Count conducted in October and released on Thursday, Dec. 12.
The PIC showed that 1,499 individuals in Saskatoon are experiencing homelessness, up more than 200 percent from 550 two years ago. Speaking to local journalists at the Saskatoon Inn on Friday, Dec. 13, Arcand said he was shocked the number almost tripled, as he estimated it would only be around 800 people.
Arcand criticized the City Council, which held a Governance and Priorities Committee meeting on Thursday, Dec. 12, for not coming up with a solution during their meeting, instead discussing funding the 30-bed shelter in Pacific Avenue, which is expected to open in January. He added that the 30-bed facility would hardly dent the number of homeless people.
“They told us it would be open by January. It's not open until March, but you put $360,000 into a renovation from reserve funds. Why are we not taking money from the reserve funds to add more shelters right now to help more people? There are people on our streets, and those are the kinds of decisions we have to look at,” said Arcand.
“If that's risk management, at least we're investing in safety right now for the people. I presented this to the City Council before the elections. I said the provincial government has $1.2 million for this 30-bed facility that's not being used. Let's ask them to redeploy that to shelters. Nobody has done that, and that’s when we only knew it was 550. Now, it's 1,500 people.”
He added that he would continue to advocate for the serious issue. He challenged all officials to act now so people could see the results of helping the homeless and vulnerable community members.
“I'm not going to sit back and allow this to happen. I need the Mayor [Cynthia Block], the [City] Council, and the city staff to listen to the Saskatoon Tribal Council because people are out there freezing. It's cold outside. It's been chilly. We've had some nasty weather, and we're just getting started into winter here. We still have four solid months of winter,” said Arcand.
“For me, I have a serious concern because I'm going to assume again that probably 90 per cent of those 1,499 people are First Nations people, Indigenous people, right? So, I've got a value, invested interest in this about our people being on the street. And we've seen what it's been like in the last month here.”
Arcand said they had talked to local officials about the issue but not on the reactive response of what needs to be done., which needs further discussions to address one of the most serious crises in the city. Block said finding a solution to the homelessness crisis is one of her administration’s top priorities.
“Her [Block] number one priority was homelessness. Well, I have 1,500 people. I'm talking about it. I'm saying I need buildings. I need this. Who's doing that? The city is going to lead that. How do we get staffing in there right away to do this? It shouldn't be rocket science to figure this out. We need people to make some decisions and deal with this right away, not in January or February. We need this done right away,” said Arcand.
Government housing
Saskatchewan NDP Shadow Minister for Housing April ChiefCalf, in a statement, said the Saskatchewan Party-led provincial government’s failure to help the people contributed to the PIT Count's results, with the number of homeless people almost tripling in the last two years. She added that vacant public housing units are available.
“We know the Sask Party government is leaving available public housing—potential life-changing homes for people—vacant. And failing to provide immediate cost-of-living relief despite repeated opportunities to do so during the Fall Sitting. The government has also repeatedly dodged demands from my colleagues and I for a Cold Weather Strategy, even as much of the province is under an extreme cold weather warning,” said ChiefCalf, the Saskatoon Westview MLA.
She added that the opposition would continue to raise homelessness as an issue that needs to be addressed. They would also advocate for making affordable housing available, providing families with immediate help to cut costs, and pressuring the government to develop a Cold Weather Strategy as the province braces for extreme winter weather.
However, Arcand said that although he does not know the exact number, there are empty and available public housing units in the city that can be used to house individuals or families, which they have successfully done at the emergency wellness centre; people still need support for their mental health issues and overcoming their addictions.
“I'll say this openly and honestly: people say if we put people in housing, and we've seen this through the work that we've done, we give somebody a house or an apartment, if they have their crisis, their mental health, their addictions that aren't taken care of, they fail in that house. So, we solved nothing. Why? Because they're being evicted, because they're bringing all their friends over, that are continuing their addictions, they're wrecking the house, everything else,” said Arcand.
“So, in our programs at EWC, when somebody goes into our second location, we have staff and security in those buildings and apartment buildings, and people have to attend day programs once a week, twice a week. We still have challenges because people are still dealing with addictions. We have gangs that are coming there to take advantage of people and everything else. It's a serious problem. So, just putting people in the house will not solve the issue. We still have serious addiction and mental health issues. That potentially could have those people addicted. We don't have staff to go in there and continue that home visit. And we're setting people up for failure.”
