SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Hidden in the overgrown brush of Curry Drive, a dilapidated warehouse sits high on the hill. A shadow of its former self, the blue and white building formerly existed as a refuge for the Yellowknife's homeless but was abandoned after being shut down by the city in 2006.
Ian Mathers stands last week outside the abandoned camp he used to run on Curry Drive. From 2003 to 2006 the building served as low-cost accommodation for transient workers and the city's homeless. - Meagan Leonard/NNSL photo
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Dubbed the "Third Millennium" project by property owner Ian Mathers, the modular unit saw approximately 800 people go through its doors in just three years. Now as the issue of homelessness becomes a buzz topic in political circles, Mathers wants to remind people there was once another option.
"I just want to set the record straight," he told Yellowknifer. "There used to be a place for these people to go."
It all started in 2003 when Mathers received a call from a stranger asking to rent a heated 8x8-foot storage unit he had on his property. At first he said no but then agreed to meet up with the man.
"It turned out he was a carpenter working on the jail site," Mathers explained. "His hours had been reduced to the point where he couldn't afford to stay in a hotel anymore and he was looking for a place to live and was willing to live in a storage unit."
The following spring, Mathers started looking for a proper building people such as the carpenter could stay in. He called around and purchased a 42-man camp building from a former military base in Cold Lake, Alta., and modified it into living quarters with a kitchen, bathrooms and commons area.
Once he was up and running, Mathers said he usually had between 10 and 35 people staying with him at a time. As a rule, Mathers charged $50 a night for the first night and then $35 for each night afterward. For those staying longer other arrangements could be made - it was a fluid system.
"There was one fellow who came to me after the third week and told me he was going to have to leave because he had run out of money," he said. "I told him just to hang tough. I gave him a week's free accommodation and he ended up getting a job and is still in Yellowknife."
Despite its success, the future of the building was always in a precarious state as it was located in Kam Lake's heavy industrial zone. Mathers said he was granted a zoning exception to operate but it had to be reviewed by council each year. After the 2006 municipal election, he lost the interest of many councillors and was shut down after receiving a poor grade on a fire inspection. Faced with thousands of dollars in required upgrades to the facility and a $500 per day penalty for not adhering, he was forced to close the doors.
"It was very difficult for me to have to tell those people to leave," he said. "I had one family staying there with a child and I knew they had nowhere else to go."
Although many of the people Mathers took in were unemployed or on income support, it was also a popular place to go for construction workers and miners new to the city.
Jesse Davidson stayed at the camp for a month when he first came to the territory from Vancouver to work as a land surveyor in 2007. He said the housing offered by his employer was at capacity when he arrived and there was a wait list.
"When I moved to Yellowknife I didn't have a place to live - I had a job arranged but I had very little contacts in town," he said. "(The camp) really helped me get on my feet and get a start . it was like staying in a hostel when you travel overseas."
For Davidson, like many of the other workers living at the camp, renting a hotel just wasn't an option.
"When you come from another province, the prices up here are a bit shocking," he said. "Our income down south isn't proportionate to what is offered up here."
Today Mathers uses the building for a workshop and although he doesn't intend to reopen he says the city could use a similar facility again.
"When I read all these articles about homelessness, it seems to have been forgotten, there was a place for people in those circumstances to find accommodation and the city closed it," he said.
