Safe ride program funding denied
Money from 2017 city budget will sustain initiative until end of December
Kirsten Fenn
Northern News Services
Friday, July 14, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The city is looking to scrape together another $100,000 for its safe ride program after discovering it won't get the federal funding it planned to use for the project.
First responders attend to an intoxicated man on 51 Street on June 28. Senior administrative officer Sheila Bassi-Kellett announced to council on Monday that the federal government denied the city funding to run its safe ride program, a mobile outreach service that will roam city streets helping people in need by
bringing them to a shelter or the city's sobering shelter once it opens. - John McFadden/NNSL photo |
Sheila Bassi-Kellett, the city's senior administrative officer, made the announcement during Monday's municipal services committee meeting.
The mobile outreach program involves a vehicle that would travel the city helping people in need by bringing them to a shelter, the hospital or the city's sobering centre when it opens next week.
People with medical training would staff the vehicle, which will be run by the Yellowknife Women's Society.
The program was recommended in the city's Homelessness Road Map Action Plan last October.
"When we'd included this in the budget for 2017, we included ... $100,000 within our budget and $100,000 that we would utilize from the (Homelessness Partnering Strategy) funding," said Bassi-Kellett.
The city has since learned it can't access that federal funding, she said.
According to Grant White, director of community services, the City of Yellowknife has an agreement with the federal government through the Homelessness Partnering Strategy.
According to the Government of Canada website, the federal initiative aims to address homelessness by providing support and funding to 61 communities and organizations across the country.
"Within the agreement, they have what's called directives," said White.
He said the directives outline what projects can and can't be funded through the federal initiative.
City staff initially thought the mobile outreach program would fall within funding criteria.
"But in our further discussions with the federal government, it was determined that the program really doesn't fit," said White.
"We knew hitting the directives with this program was going to be somewhat difficult and once we got into it, then we realized that we couldn't."
In February, the federal government also rejected a funding request from the City of Yellowknife for a managed alcohol program.
The city wanted $500,000 for the project, which would have provided controlled amounts of alcohol to people with addiction.
At the time, Dayle Hernblad, homelessness co-ordinator for the city, said she was told the funding request for the managed alcohol program was turned down because it wasn't innovative enough.
Coun. Linda Bussey, chair of the city's Community Advisory Board on Homelessness, was not at the Monday meeting but said the federal government provided little detail about how the outreach program misses the Homelessness Partnering Strategy directives.
"For sure I'm frustrated," she said.
"I never expected them to not accept this program. I mean, everything's in place for a successful program and if they look at all the other programs that we applied funding for, they're successful."
She said she hopes other resources can be found to support the mobile outreach program.
The city's 2017 budget sets aside $100,000 for the service, which White said will allow for it to operate until the end of December.
He added city staff plans to make a 2018 budget submission for more funds.
"We're beginning the street outreach service this month," said Bassi-Kellett. "Going forward, if we want to be able to retain the street outreach service, which is very strongly connected with the sobering centre that the GNWT is beginning to implement in July, this will be a really important function for us."
Yellowknifer requested more information from Employment and Social Development Canada about why the city's mobile outreach program did not meet the criteria for funding under the Homelessness Partnering Strategy but according to spokesperson Josh Bueckert, the department does not have an application from the City of Yellowknife for a mobile outreach program on file.
NWT MP Michael McLeod's office did not return a request for comment.
