SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition needed an owner and operator before it could begin building a women and children's transitional home on 54 Street - and they found one.

The lot purchased by the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition on 54 Street in March is the site of the planned women's transitional home. - Kira Curtis/NNSL photo

The coalition named the Yellowknife YWCA to run the new facility once it's built, moving the project to the next step of development.

Now the coalition can get the building designed and determine what programs will be offered.

"It's not (going to be) institutional, it's more of a home-style building," said Amanda Mallon, co-chair of the coalition.

Mallon says it is important for this housing to be a part of the community so women, who have had difficult lives due to drug or alcohol abuse or have left an abusive relationship, and children have the best opportunity to move on to a strong and sustainable life. Mallon said the housing, which will be located across from Aurora College, will be designed to blend in to the neighbourhood.

"It's important," she said. "In the neighbourhood it is in, it has to fit in."

The current plan is the building will have 30 self-contained units for women and women with children needing a safe place to stay and to get back on their feet.

Right now the YWCA has 12 beds at its family violence shelter, the Alison McAteer House, and 32 units for families at the Rockhill apartments on 54 Avenue, but Lyda Fuller, director of the YWCA Yellowknife, said there are always families waiting to get in, adding they have up to 30 families on the waiting list at any given time.

Fuller said most of the families needing a place to recover are single mothers, so the new transitional home for women and children will relieve pressure from Rockhill.

In 2008 the coalition opened the Bailey House, a 32-unit transitional house for men. Emergency housing for women is available in Yellowknife, but there is no transitional housing to rehabilitate women without families.

This new facility will be the first.

Currently, the coalition doesn't have a projected cost of the building or an annual budget and that is the next step in the project.

The coalition purchased the 54 street land this March for $935,000 with help from the federal government through its Homelessness Partnering Strategy.

Early projections on the cost of the building are around $6 million, but only because that is what the Bailey House cost to build and they are aiming for around the same size facility. At this point the coalition won't know how much money they need until the building and

operational plans are fine-tuned.

Mallon said they hope to have a clearer idea in the next month or so on where the costs stand.

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