SideDoor expanding services
Organization plans to start offering addictions and mental health treatment
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Friday, June 17, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
SideDoor Youth Ministries announced this week it plans to expand its services to offer mental health and addictions treatment.
Iris Hamlyn, executive director of SideDoor Youth Ministries, has revealed the organization plans to expand its services and work toward starting its own type of Housing First program for youth. - |
Those services will also include housing and tenancy supports, employment and training, practical supports and life skills training.
Executive director Iris Hamlyn explained the plan to the city's Community Advisory Board on Homelessness on Thursday morning. The board had met to consider, among other things, whether to allocate more money to deal with homelessness. In the past, this has meant contributions to SideDoor. No funding decision was made at the meeting.
The new services offered by SideDoor Youth Ministries are on top of what's been offered at its SideDoor Resources Centre, a drop-in location on 50 Street, and at Hope's Haven on 52 Street. Hope's Haven opened in June last year with a mix of emergency shelter beds and transitional beds. Those who use the transitional beds stay at Hope's Haven full-time and have access to the services there. But the emergency shelter is only open 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., sending the youth who use those beds onto the street during the day.
"It only provides the service to the youth in the facility. That was not meeting the needs of the community," Hamlyn said.
This is why the organization sought funding for the added services in a location a broader group could access, in it's 50 Street building.
Under the plan, Hope's Haven will be one option for housing, she said. The group is also looking to put youth in scattered apartments or units, a form of Housing First.
Housing First is a method of addressing homelessness by first putting someone in housing and then offering various services to help that person, such as clinical help or life skills. The city is preparing to launch its own version of this program this year.
"This is very good news for homeless youth in Yellowknife," said Stephen Jackson, CEO of Avens and a committee member, about the plan outlined by Hamlyn at the meeting. Jackson sought to clarify how the organization will afford it.
"We can't afford not to do it, basically," she said.
They have gone out seeking additional funding and received it through a federal program for two years. The money will flow through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.
SideDoor will match the funding, she said. SideDoor issued more requests for funding and is waiting to hear about those, she said.
"We do have a bit of funding, but not enough yet," she said.
The expansion will see the SideDoor staff of 17 full- and part-time will grow by four. Three have already been hired while an addictions and mental health role still needs to be filled, she said. Some of the services are expected to begin July 4 in the space previously occupied by the Yellowknife Family Centre. Several parents who used the family centre expressed concern about the future of the service when they learned it would need to find another home.
