Tina Johnson is the manager of the Extended Hours Program. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

homelessness

Staffing shortage, price of goods remain issues for La Ronge overnight shelter

Apr 27, 2023 | 3:12 PM

The board of the Kikinahk Friendship Centre will review operations at its overnight shelter in La Ronge now that it has come to an end until next fall.

“We have to rethink how we are going to run it next fall because everyone is expecting us to run it from Oct. 1 again,” executive director Ron Woytowich said.

“It is a necessity, but this past year has been something else with all the extra people showing up and the cold and everything that went with it. The price of food also jumped up big time and everything else. A lot of people don’t realize how important it is to run a shelter.”

The Extended Hours Program utilized space at the Scattered Site downtown location and this past season it operated from Oct. 1 until April 26. The shelter accommodated 22 to 24 people every night and Woytowich explained it was almost always full.

“It really was something where people just hung around the whole day and the whole night and used the place,” Woytowich said.

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“We were pretty much full all the time. There were times when literally there was no space and we also have some people we had to ban because of extremely violent or sexual behaviour that would have to go elsewhere. There was a period where the band set up one for a week or two to do the overload.”

Woytowich mentioned it has cost $940,000 to operate both Scattered Site and the Extended Hours Program for the last 13 months. He noted Kikinahk was fortunate to be able to divert other funds to the programs, as well as receive COVID relief funding from the federal government.

“All of that has come to an end now,” Woytowich said. “We seriously need to start looking at sources of funding to keep it going because the homeless population is not going away and prices have gone up.”

Other issues Kikinahk was faced with was a staffing shortage, which was made worse by a requirement to have both a man and a woman on shift at all times.

The increase in usage was also difficult to contend with as there were more people coming from outside of the community to access the service. Woytowich noted many of the new clients had come from Prince Albert and had family who live in the tri-communities.

“Our staff were extremely busy and they deserve a lot of credit for putting up with a lot quite frankly,” he said.

As the Extended Hours Program has now ended, Scattered Site is seeking donations of tents, tarps, sleeping bags, blankets, rain gear, warm coats, sweaters, men’s and ladies pants, socks, running shoes, rubber boots, an non-disposable coffee cups.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @saskjourno