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New Warming Shelter weeks away from opening

Clients of the Inuvik Warming Shelter will soon have a new building to escape the deadly winter cold.
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Meet the new Inuvik Warming Shelter — NWT Health and Social Services Authority has donated an unused group home to NWT Housing Corporation to house clients of the Warming Shelter from the dangerous winter cold. Eric Bowling/NNSL photo

Clients of the Inuvik Warming Shelter will soon have a new building to escape the deadly winter cold.

NWT Housing Corporation president Eleanor Young told Inuvik Drum a group home owned by NWT Health and Social Services has been donated for a new shelter.

Young said the new building, located at 26 Reliance St. was undergoing inspection and was hopeful it could be ready for service as soon as next week. The facility has seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room and office and is large enough that clients will be able to properly socially distance.

“It’s a matter of timing the inspections and if there’s anything that comes out of the inspections they recommend, then we obvious have to get that done before we move people in,” said Young. “Our goal is to make that happen as quickly as possible so we can make sure folks get in there.

“I’m very grateful that, through some cooperation at the regional level with HSS that we’ve been able to find a solution very quickly. I know it doesn’t always happen that way, so we’re very lucky that we’ve got something we can put together that will get us through the winter and perhaps longer. But at least through the winter, and we’ll go from there.”

Close quarters at the old shelter on Berger St. was one of the main factors in the original decision to move the shelter to the MACA building on Veteran’s Way that burned down last week. The new building will also solve the Warming Shelter’s kitchen problems. Currently, meals are being prepared at the Inuvik Homeless Shelter and delivered to the Berger St. building because its kitchen doesn’t meet Covid-19 requirements. Young said the building also has plumbing issues.

Already faced with extremely difficult circumstances, Inuvik’s homeless people were put in even further dire circumstances when an electrical fire Nov. 26 forced evacuation of the Warming Shelter on Veteran’s Way. Young said the damage from that first fire was enough that standard safety protocols required the building to be inspected before it could be put back into use. Those inspections had not even begun when a second fire erupted the following day, burning the structure to the ground.

Young said some furniture, food and other minor assets were lost in the blaze, but NWTHC staff were able to recover most of people’s belongings before the second fire.

“They went in the Saturday morning and tried to get the most critical stuff out of there,” she said. “From what I understand, the most important things like people’s personal effects and stuff like that, we did manage to get out.

“I’m just so happy that folks are safe and they got out of the building safely and we were able to look after them.”



About the Author: Eric Bowling

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