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Mayor Gord Van Tighem says fundraising efforts for BETTY House ­ a transitional home for homeless women ­ will be ramping up in the next few months after a quiet summer following criticism from Lyda Fuller, executive of the Yellowknife YWCA, that not enough was being done. - Katherine Hudson/NNSL photo

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Things are quiet on the BETTY House front these days.

Over the summer, there were a few fundraisers, such as the City of Yellowknife's Garden Tour, zumba classes, and the Canadian North Ladies Open Golf Tournament where $1,530 was donated to the development of the transitional house.

But Lyda Fuller, executive director of the Yellowknife YWCA, said she is "dismayed by the lack of progress," on the project seeing as there is still more than $3 million to raise before construction is set to begin in the spring.

In June, Fuller cited frustration at the fundraising inactivity and "disrespectful behavior" at meetings with the Yellowknife Homelessness Coaltion as the reasons why the YWCA was leaving the group.

The BETTY House, an acronym for Better Environment to Transition in Yellowknife, is a project more than two years in the making with a goal to get homeless or near homeless women and their children into transitional housing and eventually, homes of their own. The homelessness coalition used $935,000 in funding from the federal government through its Homelessness Partnering Strategy to purchase four lots on 54 Street in October 2010 which still sit empty.

Fuller stated in an e-mail earlier this month that the city "decided to be the fundraising arm, without any real experience in that area," which "has cost dearly in terms of outcomes."

After the YWCA backed away from the table, the City of Yellowknife, the legal entity that will construct BETTY House, provided a press release stating that BETTY House was moving ahead and work would "continue within the confines of the coalition to make BETTY House a reality."

Pastor Kirk Tastad, co-chair of the coalition, said the city looks after the process of building BETTY House but the project is led by the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition.

The city is involved with it but the city isn't in charge. It's the coalition that's in charge of the fundraising," said Tastad.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem, chair of the fundraising committee for BETTY House, a subcommittee of the coalition, has been involved in the coalition for more than 12 years, before he became mayor of Yellowknife. He said there are about seven independent people from the community that are members of the fundraising committee, and that the city is an administrative partner of BETTY House while the YWCA is an operational partner.

Although Van Tighem acknowledged funds raised are "not a whole bunch" higher than what was acquired as of the beginning of the summer, he said an active fundraising committee is rolling out a campaign which involves making contact with major donors and supporters who have been identified from a feasibility study completed by The Goldie Company, a consulting firm that works with the nonprofit sector and is based out of Toronto. He said the study cost between $15,000 and $20,000.

Tastad said the feasibility study was developed to examine if the goal to raise more than $3 million is "a realistic goal."

"We waited for that to be completed and it gave us sort of an outline of the direction that we should be taking and we're working on that now," said Tastad.

Over the past two years, fundraising efforts have included generous donations from organizations such as BHP Billiton, the Yellowknife Community Foundation and the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. The coalition also launched an I Am Betty campaign which sold CDs and books this past January.

Van Tighem said in the next few months, the coalition will relaunch the fundraising campaign.

"It's just ramping up for the final push Š Just to give it a little boost," he said.

"We've got half to two thirds of the money. We need to finish it off because we can't start construction until we've got everything identified."

The design is essentially complete: with the facility set to be a multi-storey apartment building for single women, with two- and three-bedroom units for women with children. There will also be laundry facilities, programming space, offices, a common kitchen as well as common spaces for sharing.

Van Tighem likened the transitional house to Bailey House ­ a transitional house for men run by the Salvation Army ­ and the number of community supporters helped make it a reality.

"It's just a full spectrum across the community of different people that are doing different initiatives Š Once it's done, it will indeed be a full community participation activity," said Van Tighem.

But as time goes by, the need for this housing frantically rises. Fuller said the waiting list at the YWCA's transitional housing complex, Rockhill Apartments, has reached more than 150 families, double what there were in June when she left the coalition.

"We have women desperate for housing coming to us every day. I have nothing to give them," she stated.

This need has not gone unacknowledged from the coalition.

"While were working to build this facility, it's being identified that there's more and more need for something like this to happen, so hopefully the urgency will be felt by our supporters and we'll move forward quicker," said Van Tighem.

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