With the Warm Welcome program starting up last year, providing an overnight stay for Estevan's homeless, it has since grown as a vehicle of transformation for both the guests and the many volunteers who spend their nights with them.
The Salvation Army's Lieutenant Brian Bobolo has previously preached that the shelter doesn't provide the community with a narrative of failure but with one of success. He continued to advocate those sentiments as the shelter closed for the spring and summer on March 31.
Bobolo sees the shelter as something that will be a mainstay in the Energy City, as omnipresent as Lignite Louie. Long-standing shelters in larger cities started somewhere, and what the community has seen in the past two years is the emergence of Estevan's.
"We believe this is a program intended to not only serve the people who are struggling to find adequate shelter. It's also a program to serve the community, so we set out to create this sense of community, first of all, within the shelter and we succeeded marvelously," said Bobolo, sitting down with the Mercury last week. "There's a real spirit of connection that exists within the shelter."
Moving into year two, organizers sought to create a greater culture of understanding and acceptance throughout the community, as all cities with new shelters must wrestle with what exactly that means for them.
"Last year, at the start of the program certainly, I think the community as a whole took time to come to terms with the idea that we needed a shelter. That's understandable. When community programs have sprouted up in smaller centres across Canada, there was the same phenomenon that took place," noted Bobolo. "People need to understand what a shelter is all about."
He said during the second year of the program, they continued to see growing support.
Despite that, Bobolo noted that many in the city have decisions to make on what kind of place they want Estevan to be moving forward.
"There still is with some in the community this lack of understanding about the issues of homelessness. There is a lack of acceptance," he said. "Some of our guests have really experienced some social struggle out in the community. Some of our guests have been pushed out of the community centre, out of restaurants. We've had people who have been complaining about them, in some cases about their appearance, and sought different ways to push them aside."
As a response to some of that ostracism toward some guests, the group behind the shelter has found another role to act as: that of advocate for the city's shelter insecure.
"That seems to be an ongoing challenge for us, and we've met with mixed success this year," he said.
That challenge will continue as the shelter welcomes more guests through its doors. The shelter saw 43 per cent more unique guests than last year.
"We continue to hear this in the community that isn't it better to put them in a hotel. Is this a worthwhile program to really invest in?" Bobolo said, noting the total dollar value of services provided to the guests went up by 136 per cent. That figure is calculated based on the least expensive hotel rooms in the Energy City.
It comes to about $38,000 worth of shelter and more than $5,000 of food just this past winter.
"It cost the program far less than that, so when people donate to Warm Welcome, there is a multiplying effect to their donation. Your dollars transform lives. The hours you commit to the program transform lives. We have seen our guests look healthier, an increase in their sense of optimism about the future, and we are seeing a bright future for them."
The shelter started small in late 2012, running only four nights each week for the first winter. When it opened again on Dec. 1, 2013, the shelter would remain open every night of the week. That required a greater volunteer base, and Bobolo said the community has been up to the task, committing roughly 3,600 hours to the program, a 78 per cent increase from the previous year.
He said they are always in need of volunteers as well as financial support. Though they have struggled financially this year, they have been able to pay all their bills.
While the program tries to reach more volunteers and find new sources of funding, it isn't going to slow down. For the next season, Bobolo is hopeful the shelter will be open a couple of weeks earlier, sometime in November, and closing a couple of weeks later in mid-April. His vision and plans for the shelter's future will encapsulate every day of the year. It won't happen overnight, but he stressed that the need won't disappear no matter how prosperous the city becomes.
"It's interesting living in a community like Estevan where there is some wealth. I've seen people really spend a lot of time loving their trucks, and I've seen people invest $60,000, $70,000 into their trucks, and I've seen people hold onto old trucks. They'll baby them and they'll polish them and replace the parts spending hours a week investing in it. It's consuming all their energy to keep this love interest going, and I think it's all well and good when you invest that amount of money," said Bobolo. "But the question we ask at Warm Welcome is what about our own sense of humanity? I think when we are able to see the inherent worth in the other person, we discover our own worth. We grow as people. We see the value in being human. When we dismiss others as less valuable, we cheapen our own sense of worth as a human being. When we invest more in our vehicles than we do in one another, our currency as human beings decreases.
"We are seeing that phenomenon take place in our community in some ways. Keep in mind there's a wonderful sense of community here, but in the minds of some people, we are seeing that. When we surround those in need with concentric circles of love and acceptance, we prosper as a community, and we add value to our community and add value to who we are as individuals."
When guests make their way to the shelter each evening, they are greeted by the volunteers who serve hot drinks and provide meals as well as good conversation. Volunteers and guests play games and tell stories.
"They laugh; they cry; they support one another," said Bobolo. "To that end, we succeeded famously."
As an organization, he noted they are growing and learning more about the city.
"It's a wonderful community. I've been involved in new shelter start-ups in other parts of the country and you don't see that response. We want to really pay attention to what's going on in our hearts as a community and be willing to dare to accept these individuals, even when they're so different than who we are."
Bobolo said issues for the city to continue to ponder are whether we can see our own inherent worth in people who are homeless, people who may look disheveled and people who are having emotional troubles because of the challenges they face.
"It's a slow process, but I've seen the community as a whole really learn a lot about themselves. They've re-affirmed the longstanding tradition that this community has for taking care of its own. They've come forward despite the lack of understanding what a shelter's all about. This community needs to be applauded."
They had a number of aggressive goals coming into their second year, wanting to see the program grow and prosper.
"Our other goal is to create a supportive community for our guests that exists year round. We do that through our partnership between Warm Welcome and the Salvation Army and St. Paul's," Bobolo said. "It has been a natural partnership to come onboard with St. Paul's and Pastor Brenna Nickel. It's a natural fit and a partnership that has really caught the attention of the national Salvation Army. We are on their radar."
He said the guests are always welcome to go to the Salvation Army during the day to have some food and play games.
"There's no need for people to feel as though they are alone in this community. There's always lots of support."
Bobolo also wanted to remind everyone that the community is the eyes and ears of the shelter, and they rely on people to call them if they identify someone in trouble.
"We receive guests and let them stay in our buildings overnight, (that) ends March 31, but the support we provide to them exists 365 days a year. This is an example of this community as a whole coming together and saying we do believe our neighbours are important to us."
