Day shelter's final days postponed
NWT Disabilities Council agrees to run the facility until the end of May
Cody Punter
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, March 19, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The doors of Yellowknife's day shelter will stay open until the end of May after the NWT Disabilities Council answered a last-minute call from the local health authority to run the facility.
Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority (YHSSA) president Les Harrison announced that the Dene Ko Day Shelter would be closing down once and for all on March 31 after saying the YHSSA would not extend the contract of the site's current operator at a press conference two weeks ago.
Without a plan in place, the YHSSA was left scrambling to find an organization that could fill the gap left by the departing John Howard Society, which has been operating the shelter since it opened four and half years ago.
Indeed, it wasn't until Denise McKee, executive director of the NWT Disabilities Council, read about the day shelter closing in Yellowknifer that she learned the YHSSA was looking for people to run the shelter.
"We understood the need and how vital the service was ... so we contacted Yellowknife Health and Social Services and said, 'How do we go about helping? How do we go about making sure this stays open,'" said McKee.
"I am pleased that there will be no
disruption of daytime services for the homeless until the end of spring," stated Liz Wyman, board chair of YHSSA, in a press release.
The first point of order to ensuring the shelter stayed open was delaying the demolition of the building, which has been scheduled to take place ever since the John Howard Society gave their landlord one month's notice at the end of February.
In an e-mail to Yellowknifer, Harrison stated that after discussion with Bromley and Sons, which owns the building, the authority was "able to establish an agreement to continue to allow us access to the facility for the two additional months."
McKee said running the shelter would be a good fit for the council as a percentage of the people they support also use the day shelter.
She added the council plans to continue to provide many of the same services as the John Howard Society, but with a more "holistic approach."
"We hope that we bring a fresh, positive life to the service and to the people being served," she said.
The council will begin interviewing applicants who want to work at the shelter in the coming days. McKee said some of the staff that worked at the shelter under the watch of the John Howard Society have expressed interest in applying for new positions and that some of them will likely continue to work there under the new management.
While the NWT Disability Council will provide much-needed relief over the next few months, plans for a permanent solution to the closing of the day shelter remain up in the air.
Harrison previously maintained that the YHSSA would not provide funding for a shelter between the months of May and September, despite the fact that the authority has committed $250,000 toward funding one in this year's budget.
