After being told to by the province, Saskatoon City Administration is working to secure locations for two additional 30-bed emergency shelters, with potential sites to be announced in May.
At the Governance and Priorities Committee meeting today, administration added that they are on the ground looking at about six possible sites that could be brought forward.
Councilor Troy Davies questioned how the city can move forward on additional shelters without increasing fire and police resources, as well. Saskatoon Police Service Chief Dave Haye says the province has stepped up to provide funding for the policing aspect.
“The province made available to the Saskatoon Police Service $200,000 in funding, purposefully for alternative response officers. The Saskatoon Police Service, through its budget provided by the City of Saskatoon, identified three more positions. So, we’ve actually increase by five alternative response officers, and two of them were funded by the province.”
City Manager Jeff Jorgenson says the latest the shelters would be operational is fall, to ensure that the city’s most vulnerable are not spending winter days and nights outside.
Meanwhile, a Saskatoon pastor is continuing to call for a shutdown of the Emergency Wellness Centre in Fairhaven, as he says the community is not equipped to deal with the increase in crime and unsafe activity that’s been seen.
A report from the Saskatoon Fire Department and Saskatoon Police Service detailing crime statistics in the Fairhaven and Confederation Suburban Centre neighborhoods since the implementation of the EWC was shared with the Governance and Priorities Committee and several guests at City Hall today. It shows that although there was a hike in calls for service when the shelter first opened in 2022, call numbers are now returning back to levels from 2021.
Fairmont Baptist Church Minister Robert Pearce says the report isn’t giving an accurate glimpse into the lives of those in the community, and he intends to organize an event where the public can share the experiences they’ve had since the shelter was implemented. He suggests that many community members have stopped reporting most things to police, as they find it a waste of time.
“We’re burned out. We’re done. The good will is gone. Even if I tried to encourage everybody to rally, I’d probably get ousted from the community. They’re just done.” Pearce lives in the Fairhaven area, as well.
Chief Haye agreed that statistics can’t capture the belief that communities feel they aren’t safe. “In order to understand why a person doesn’t feel safe we have to speak with them directly and learn why they believe what they do,” Haye said.
Pearce adds that the community is not equipped to deal with the uptick in crime. Pearce says the first-come-first serve model is terrible, and he suggests that social services be in charge of allocating and managing beds.
