An open house, tour and question and answer period at The Lighthouse Serving the Battlefords was attended by a small but interested group of local residents recently. Reaction indicated some were interested in donating, some in volunteering and some in fact finding.
A tour of the centre took the group through the women's dormitory, where there is a separate detox area, a family room, which is currently occupied, and the men's dormitory, which also has a separate detox area. The shelter also has a laundry room, a kitchen and, downstairs, a meeting room where a recovery program and AA meetings are held.
"We average about 30 people per night," said the shelter manager, Caitlin Glencross.
The building was purchased in June of 2014 and in September of that year renovations began.
"There were about eight people sleeping underneath this building right here, and that was the pretty big OK, I guess we're supposed to be here,'" said Glencross. "The need was quite evident."
The Lighthouse, which has been open in the Battlefords since January, operates on a harm reduction strategy and is open 365 days a year.
"We encourage people to come in, as long as they are not violent," said Glencross. "If they are intoxicated or high on drugs they can still come in. It's better than them being outside on the street."
The RCMP actually refer quite a few people to them, she added.
"The community has not had a permanent homeless shelter since the ‘80s. That was when the Salvation Army was here," she said.
Many people are not aware there was a program running at the Battlefords Indian and Métis Friendship Centre for about three years, she added, however it was not a year-round program.
"If you wonder where we get our clientele, it is not just self-referred off the street," she told the group touring the shelter. "A lot of our referrals come from the RCMP, a lot of our referrals come from Social Services."
She also said they may come from Battlefords Union Hospital when patients are being discharged have nowhere to go.
They also get referrals from the correctional system. When people are released, they have to have somewhere to go.
"We fill a lot of gaps in the community where there is a lack in housing," said Glencross. "It's not just our chronics that are in our facility. It's a lot of other people we're helping to get back on their feet."
The shelter, in turn, refers its clients to other agencies.
“We refer people to mental health and addictions frequently,” she said.
They also refer clients to treatment centres.
“We drive about five people on average a month to the Meadow Lake detox,” said Glencross. “Again, that is not something we are funded to do. We don't have a company vehicle, so I am driving people with my personal vehicle to Meadow Lake detox and back. Those are things we have to do because it’s a need in the community, however we don't have funds to do that.”
They do run a smart recovery program, for previous or current addicts, or people who are thinking of cutting back, she said, but explained it is not in lieu of mental health and addictions services. This is just for people who are not comfortable enough yet to go outside the shelter to access services.
“But we are going to get them thinking about getting there.”
AA meetings are also held at the shelter.
Of course, finding housing for their clients is a goal, but so, too, is helping them find employment. They have a partnership with Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies, which helps clients find jobs.
At the shelter located at 962-104th St., the dormitories are neat and welcoming. Most of the sleeping accommodations are what is called a "mat program," meaning the beds are mats on the floor. There are cots as well, mainly used for detox, mental health and physical disability cases, but Glencross said most clients say the mats are more comfortable than the cots. (Donations of bed frames are welcome, she added.)
"We don't allow any personal belongings in the dormitories," said Glencross. "When they come in, we give them a blue Tupperware bin, they put their shoes inside, we give them a change of pyjamas, they put their clothes in a net bag, and we wash those clothes for them. They get them back in the morning, we get our pyjamas back, and nobody is bringing anything into the dorms."
She said staff check the dorms every half hour while everybody is sleeping. (There are two staff on at all times. Glencross would like to have three staff at night, but the budget doesn't allow for that at this time.)
The dormitories are strictly for sleeping.
"People know when they come in their option is to go to bed, to settle down," she said. "If they are not going to settle, we have to call RCMP."
The safety of any individual who is asked to leave, however, is still paramount.
"As the weather has gotten colder, nobody leaves this building without an escort. Social Services, RCMP, someone is accountable for them when they leave," said Glencross.
The shelter also has a dining room, which also serves as a type of common room, although most clients spend the day out, except for meals. They are allowed to "hang out" there, but backpacks are not allowed in the dining room. They have to be put in a locker.
Three meals a day are served. It's something the shelter decided to do because the need is there, but there is no funding for it. It is entirely volunteer- and donation-based.
"We don't have a hired cook … we rely pretty much solely on donations and our staff cook or we have volunteers that cook."
The shelter received a community initiative grant to build the kitchen.
"When we bought the building, we basically had wood boxes with plywood over them for countertops. That's what we had to work with," said Glencross. "We had two stoves that didn't work, so it was really a need we had."
Statistics on the meal program show an average of 2,200 meals a month. Of the people accessing the meal program, 10 per cent have been children, 15 per cent have been youth and 10 per cent have been pension age and up. The rest are adult men and women.
It's not always the homeless that access the service, either, said Glencross. Sometimes it's the hungry.
Some people come in saying, "Don't call Social Services, but we need food," she explained. Those people are invited in and they try to send them home with a bag of food as well.
With an obvious need for the program, Glencross is thankful for the grant to fix up the kitchen and there are plans to have at least two fundraisers for the meal program in the coming year.
"A lot of our volunteers spend a lot of time [in the kitchen]," she said, and they are always happy to have more. "You can come in and make meals, you can come in and bake, we gets lots of baking mixes donated, we have three ladies who all they do is come here and make cupcakes," she said. "We're very flexible, whatever's on your heart, whatever you feel, all you have to do is let us know and we'll work with you."
She also said, "We get lots of help from the people who stay here."
They help clean and are helpful in the kitchen and elsewhere.
"We have four guys who like to shovel," she said. "They get up first thing in the morning and shovel, then come in and have breakfast, then they are out doing whatever for the day."
While they run a meal program, a recovery program and host AA meetings, The Lighthouse is first and foremost an emergency homeless shelter, Glencross emphasized.
"We are not core funded by the government," she said. "We do not receive a core amount of funds and they say, ‘make your budget from that.’ In a lot of other provinces, that's how it works. Not in Saskatchewan.’
The shelter gets a per diem per person from the Ministry of Social Services, but only if the ministry decides it is going to fund that person. But the ministry doesn't fund up to half the people who use the shelter.
"If you are not familiar with how unique North Battleford is, only two other places in the country are like the Battlefords, where they have a large amount of First Nations reserves surrounding a city," said Glencross. "Because of that, there is a constant federal versus provincial fight of who's going to pay for what."
She said non-profit organizations often fall through the cracks financially because of this issue.
"Right now, the ministry declines to fund about 40 to 50 per cent of the people that stay here. So, if we are housing 30 a night, the ministry is maybe going to pay for 15. So we really rely on donations, we really rely on when community grants come up."
She noted the Saskatoon Health Region is cutting all of their community grants right now, which will hit The Lighthouse in Saskatoon.
"We are not funded by the health region here at all," she said of The Lighthouse Serving the Battlefords. "We rely on the Homelessness Partnership Fund, which is through the federal government. That is a small amount of funds we get, but we have had a lot of community support and that's allowed us to continue doing what we're doing."
She said as far as grants go, Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs Community Development Corporation has been a major supporter.
"That's how we were able to do all the renovations and run for this year," said Glencross.
At the opening of the shelter, it was announced that BATC CDC, which is responsible for distributing a portion of the Gold Eagle Casino profits by providing financial support to non-profit and charitable organizations, had provided funding in the amount of $275,000.
The Lighthouse organization also earns an income from operation of Blue Mountain Adventure Resort in the Thickwood Hills near North Battleford.
"Money that Blue Mountain makes funds the homeless shelters, and we also bring out people," said Glencross. "We did four trips this year for clients. We had a barbecue, they were able to be in the outdoors, some helped cut down trees, it was really good."
She added there are two local churches that take an offering once a month for the shelter, even though the shelter is not a faith-based organization.
“Although a lot of us have faith, as many people do, we’re non-faith based period, not just nondenominational. We encourage everybody to express themselves in a respectful manner,” said Glencross.
