The safety plan promises that police and fire department personnel will be available throughout the surrounding areas “24 hours a day.”
The proposed measures include a six- to eight-foot chain-link fence around the building with locked gates, so that the shelter could only be accessed from Ontario Avenue, not Pacific Avenue.
Also, the city is promising extended hours for security and support workers downtown, with a “proactive priority focus on the vicinity around the proposed shelter.”
City police, the fire department and The Mustard Seed — the Alberta organization contracted by the province to operate the shelter — also plan to work together and share information about the shelter and any potential problems.
The safety plan promises police and fire department personnel will be available throughout the surrounding areas “24 hours a day.”
The city says the emergency shelter would operate under a “behaviour-based shelter model” which means that “physical fighting, threat of assault or history of assaults (or) threats towards guests and staff will not be allowed. Expectations of guests are that use of alcohol or drugs are not to be used on the property. … Guests will be assessed (and) continually monitored during their stay.”
People who are “cooperative” with “no escalated behaviours” will be allowed inside, or taken to another shelter if it’s full.
Someone who is angry, “disruptive” or “beyond The Mustard Seed’s level of care” will be offered transportation to “a more appropriate space,” the plan promises.
If someone is acting violently, has weapons or is making threats, staff will call police.
The city has been looking for a place to put a new shelter of this type since October 2023.
An enhanced emergency shelter is supposed to provide clients with full, 24/7 access to the space along with three meals a day, case planning, wrap-around support for health, wellness and culture, and help connecting to other services and moving into long-term housing.
“A lot of those kids, those patients, those clients, whatever you want to call them, are Indigenous kids from all over Saskatchewan,” he said.
He reiterated his call for the city to pause the current process and instead consider developing warm-up shelters. He said the city should have had a plan in place for such facilities at the start of September.
In a statement last week, Mayor Charlie Clark’s office said there is an unprecedented number of people without housing, which means any possible beds are needed at both the STC wellness centre and the proposed shelter on Pacific Avenue.
The mayor’s office noted the city does not have a role in determining funding for shelter service providers and said its role involves helping find facilities.
“The City agreed to help the province find locations and that process has been discussed at public meetings of City Council,” the mayor’s office said.
It added that work is ongoing to make sure warm-up centres are available for people as the winter months draw closer.
“Because we are anticipating hundreds more people who will need a place to stay warm once the shelter beds are filled up, the city is in the final stages of working with community partners and the Province to provide an overnight warming centre,” the mayor’s office said.
— With files from Michael Joel-Hansen, Saskatoon StarPhoenix
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