Calling on GNWT for help
Fort Smith hopes to make homeless shelter funding an issue at NWT Association of Communities meeting
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, April 28 2014
THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
Fort Smith hopes to raise the issue of funding for the town's homeless shelter - operated by Salt River First Nation - at the upcoming annual meeting of the NWT Association of Communities.
Town council has submitted a resolution on funding homeless shelters to the association's resolutions committee and hopes to have it discussed at the annual meeting in Inuvik May 8 to 12.
The submitted motion follows a March 24 special meeting of Fort Smith town council and the First Nation, which built the shelter in 2009 and has largely funded it since.
The First Nation asked the Town of Fort Smith for support to keep the shelter open.
Mayor Brad Brake, who researched and developed the motion, said it would call on the NWT Association of Communities to lobby the GNWT to end homelessness in the Northwest Territories and to fully fund homeless shelters.
"As an immediate response, that was the first thing we could do really swiftly," he said of the First Nation's request for assistance.
Fort Smith is not the only community facing the issue of homelessness, Brake added. "There's a prevalence of homelessness within all the communities of the NWT, I would suggest."
The mayor noted the First Nation has been largely self-funding the homeless shelter, but does have some support from other organizations, such as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.
Town council is still contemplating if it will do more to help SRFN operate the shelter, and what that assistance might be, said Brake, who noted the band now pays 84 per cent of the costs.
"They take a considerable amount of money from their own capital fund," he said. "So they want to start looking for other avenues of funding for it. One of the requests to town council was to fund either by cash or in-kind or to do a fundraiser or something like that to assist with the homeless shelter."
While town council has historically not helped financially with homeless shelters, it's a possibility, said Brake.
"I think that we have to look at it and discuss it amongst council."
News/North attempted to contact Chief Frieda Martselos and obtain more details on the homeless shelter's financial issues, but calls were not returned.
