City bureaucrats are trying to salvage a proposed downtown Saskatoon shelter site by proposing to build a chain-link fence to restrict access to the building.
If you wanted to pick the worst place for a homeless shelter, you could not have done much better than city hall did with the proposed building downtown.
But city bureaucrats managed to make that proposed site worse with a plan to essentially turn the former Saskatchewan Transportation Company bus depot into a cage.
City hall sent out a news release at 5:24 p.m. on Friday announcing the scheme, which is apparently intended to try to salvage the site before city council votes Wednesday on whether to approve it.
The new plan pitches a chain-link fence around the property to prevent access from Pacific Avenue, and seven-day-a-week “security/support” with a focus on the shelter’s vicinity. It sounds like city hall wants to establish a mini-jail downtown for homeless people, most of whom are likely to be Indigenous.
The building recommended by city hall bureaucrats for approval is located on Pacific Avenue about 250 metres from where the Saskatoon Tribal Council ran a temporary emergency shelter until 2022, when it closed.
The tribal council now runs a 106-bed shelter in the Fairhaven neighbourhood, where safety concerns have spiked since a former church was renovated to accommodate the provincial facility.
Council scuttled that location by tweaking the bylaw to prevent shelters from opening within 250 metres of a Catholic or public division school.
So the presumed thinking appears to be that homeless shelters and children should be separated.
But the proposed downtown shelter site, which was purchased by the city for a downtown arena district, is located right next to two sites frequented by children.
A dance school that caters to children as young as three is located directly across the street from the proposed site.
The historic Rumley Building, which has been converted into office space and homes, is located next door. A clinic that helps children dealing with developmental issues and suffering from trauma is located inside the Rumley.
You would really need to tax your brain to imagine a worse location.
SAFE SHELTERS?
Council is likely to hear platitudes from city officials and perhaps even provincial bureaucrats, if they show up for Wednesday’s meeting, about how the shelter can be made safe.
Yet when council introduced a buffer zone between shelters and schools, it essentially conceded a lack of faith in the ability to keep these provincial facilities safe.
If shelters can be made safe, go back to Sutherland and make that one safe. The lesson from Fairhaven seems clear — that shelters either cannot be made safe or that the political will to make them safe is lacking.
Surely supporters of this downtown location can see the grotesque irony of potentially interfering with the treatment of children’s mental health issues, given that mental health issues drive increases in homelessness, addiction and crime.
The Sutherland location was rejected and now an even worse spot is being promoted. It’s worth asking why it took nearly a year to find a site and why approval is being sought now, with no real consultation, on the cusp of a provincial election and with the implied threat of the deadly cold of winter.
Arcand wants a pause on the downtown site and suggested the money earmarked for it be used for temporary warm-up shelters instead.
That makes more sense, especially since Arcand noted that the 30 to 40 beds proposed for the downtown shelter would house a fraction of the estimated 800 homeless people in Saskatoon.
But Penny Babbings, who lives in the The Rumley and spoke at a news conference called last week by Arcand, said she has seen vehicles being unloaded at the building for about three weeks.
That suggests a decision was made before any voices are heard.
The province has committed $250,000 to renovate the building and would pay $1 per month to lease it from the city for two years.
Regina city council is also set to approve a permanent shelter near that city’s downtown on Wednesday.
And Saskatoon council will consider a report Wednesday that says city hall has entered “the final due diligence stages” for a permanent shelter site that would require a “new build.”
But that election looms for the incumbent councillors seeking re-election, particularly mayoral candidate Coun. Cynthia Block, whose ward includes the downtown.
Saskatoon has learned that finding a shelter location is extremely difficult, but opting to protect children, especially the most vulnerable, ranks as among the easiest of decisions.
Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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