NNSL (Apr 03/98) - More federal money will come to Yellowknife to house convicts. Corrections Canada has renewed its contract with the Salvation Army to provide a halfway house.

The Salvation Army provides up to 24 beds per day and receives $65 for each filled bed to a maximum of $569,400.

The church-based social organization will receive an additional $23,540 parole allowance plus $18,250 for programs provided for a total contract of $611,190 during the period starting this week and ending March 31, 1999.

"If 26 guys happened to show up, we'd work with the 26," said director of corrections programs Dave Molzahn.

"That's an estimated number of people we would be working with," he said of the 24-bed per diem payments.

As the Yellowknife halfway house for more than 10 years, the Salvation Army houses incarcerated Northerners in transition between prison and their home. Often they are from outside of Yellowknife.

"We are part of the system of serving time," Molzahn said. "When people come here it's a halfway measure: halfway out of jail, halfway back to the community."

Molzahn said supervision is a key service the Sally Ann provides. Inmates are offered programs such as substance abuse, grief and loss or family violence programs.

Halfway house residents are allowed out during the day to visit family.

Discipline follows dishonesty. If they are dishonest about where they are going, the halfway house could impose a series of measures, from limiting outside time to revoking parole and sending them back to jail.

"It depends what happens," Molzahn said, "and there is a process laid out."

The most important thing the Salvation Army does, according to Molzahn is manage risk.

That means a rehabilitation focus. "We'll encourage rehabilitation to the best of our abilities until someone is really not forthcoming."

Molzahn estimated 95 per cent of the men of the Salvation Army halfway house are from outside Yellowknife.

"They're all the way from Resolute or Pond Inlet to Tuktoyaktuk to Iqaluit or any of the other communities -- usually on statutory release."

Molzahn stressed most men in the facility are productive, capable and willing to work.

In Yellowknife, no volunteer agencies have come to the Salvation Army to try to utilize the abilities of the halfway house residents.

If they did, some residents may want the work to gain experience to help them stay out of jail once they return to their home community, Molzahn said.