The city is pushing for more money to continue operating a safe ride vehicle that brings intoxicated individuals to shelters around Yellowknife, but that money won’t be coming from the territorial government.
While there is enough money to keep the van’s wheels rolling through December, city officials are “anxiously” looking for more funding to continue the program beyond this year, said Sheila Bassi-Kellett, the city’s senior administrative officer.
“We don't have anything firm yet, but we're continuing to push really, really hard,” she said.
Health and Social Services Minister Glen Abernethy told Yellowknifer the city hasn't asked the GNWT for funding for the program.
“We, on the other hand, are funding the sobering centre and the day shelter. We have over $1.4 million annually committed to those initiatives,” he said last month.
Over the summer, the City of Yellowknife learned it would not be getting $100,000 in funding for the safe ride – or mobile outreach – program it had expected to receive through the federal government’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy.
It turned out the program didn’t fit the funding criteria, said Bassi-Kellett.
That left the city with $100,000 from its own budget to support the safe ride until the end of 2017.
By August, city council had voted to top up that funding with another $78,000.
Although the GNWT isn’t providing money for the program, she said it is helping broker a deal.
“Frankly, they're not funding us adequately as a municipal government on a lot of levels. We are $11-million underfunded by MACA, based on MACA's own methodology for funding community governments,” said Bassi-Kellett. “So we're feeling the pinch. We have stepped up on this one because no one else is going to deal with this stuff if we don't.”
While the city isn’t going to sit down and tell the GNWT it can’t do anything without them, said Bassi-Kellett, she added the issues of homelessness and alcoholism are bigger than the municipal government.
“We're scraping where we can to find this,” she said.
Municipal and Community Affairs Minister Caroline Cochrane said she is “actively advocating” for more federal funding for housing and homelessness.
While she isn’t asking for money specifically for the safe ride program, she is pushing for more leeway with how federal dollars are used “so provinces and territories can actually use the funding that we receive in a more flexible model that can meet the needs of people,” said Cochrane. “That does include the homelessness monies and how we use that funding.”
A base plus funding formula, rather than per capita, is another change Cochrane said would help the territory.
Under a base plus funding formula, provinces and territories would receive the same base amount of money plus additional funding per capita.
“Homelessness money is actually (an) agreement between the City of Yellowknife and the federal government,” said Cochrane. “But we are trying to look at advocating for their needs, because homelessness is an issue that affects all communities.”
At the same time as the city is “beating at the bushes” for more safe ride program funding, according to Bassi-Kellett, the GNWT is searching for an interim location for the sobering centre.
The two programs have worked in tandem, with the safe ride vehicle transporting many intoxicated individuals to the sobering centre while it was open.
The sobering centre was temporarily located at the Yellowknife Community Arena from mid-July to Sept. 15, but is now without a home as the arena is being used once again for sports.
Last week, the city and GNWT jointly extended a call for a suitable interim location for the sobering centre while the permanent location at 5111 50 Street undergoes upgrades.
“Preliminary numbers/results indicate the service had a positive impact on the workload of emergency services resources (RCMP, ambulance and first responders),” stated the news release. “GNWT needs to find an interim location to continue to provide this vital service, particularly over the coming winter months.”
Once the sobering centre has been up and running efficiently for at least a year, the GNWT could consider a managed alcohol program, Abernethy told the legislative assembly on Sept. 26.
“Both the sobering centre and the safe ride program are great programs,” Abernethy said. “We need to make sure they're there – that they're there for the long run.”