The City of Yellowknife is heading into 2024 with a funding extension and a full-time homelessness specialist on staff to make progress on barriers facing those without a place to call home.
The municipality will benefit from four more years of federal Reaching Home money in the amount of $2.7 million annually, beginning April 1.
“It’s something that’s hard to say in terms of will this be enough money at this point, but $2.7 million per year is a really good start,” said Dan Ritchie, who took on the role of homelessness specialist with the city in September.
He added that the municipality will also be consulting with the GNWT on what assistance the territorial government can provide.
Coun. Ben Hendriksen said the federal funding will allow multiple municipal committees to plan and implement various housing initiatives in the city. He pointed out that Reaching Home funding has been used in the past to support the new YWCA building, renovate rooms at the Salvation Army, help Bailey House, provide food programs, and refurbish other residential units. He said these projects provide not only the first step to finding a place to live, but ongoing support for people who have transitioned into housing.
In addition to the federal funding, the Yellowknife Women’s Society oversees the Street Outreach program, which is backed by $311,000 in funding from the city, and the women’s society also oversees a related employment program with $100,000 in municipal support.
The extent of homelessness in Yellowknife is not easy to quantify, according to Ritchie.
“It’s difficult to see the amount of people who are experiencing the wide range of homelessness because there’s some people who are couch-surfing who are experiencing chronic homelessness and so people who don’t have those opportunities to have temporary housing, so it’s a really complex thing to track,” he said, adding that the city is constantly monitoring service providers to ensure enough spaces are provided.
Four local organizations provide temporary shelter. The city estimates that, in total, 71 beds are available to those in need: 46 designated for men, 10 for women, another nine for women with children and six designated for youth.
Ritchie and Hendriksen emphasized the importance of community engagement and feedback in relation to this issue, and Ritchie noted that the city’s community advisory board plays a key role in gathering input from the public.
One of the challenges for the city is coordinating among the organizations involved in addressing homelessness, Ritchie acknowledged.
“We are finding it’s difficult to have a coordinated effort because we’re often funding individual programs, so that’s a process that we’re looking forward to in the future is how to actually make sure that all the service providers are communicating — that we’re incentivizing them to be able to communicate together and be able to have a concerted coordinated effort on ending homelessness,” he said.