The Rotary House recently implemented a capacity limit of 37 people per night

By Sheena Roszell

homelessness

Community invited to city’s update on homeless situation

Jun 28, 2019 | 12:30 PM

Community members are invited to Teresa Sargent Hall next Friday to learn about the homeless situation in Grande Prairie.

Housing and Homeless Initiatives Supervisor with the city, Katherine Schmidt is hoping for a lot of community involvement.

“We are going to get people that will voice concerns, we are going to get people that are going to talk about things that are working well. It’s truly an opportunity for the community to come together and have some great conversations and for us to be able to look at the opportunities going forward,” she explained. “We strongly believe that when it comes to initiatives like ending homelessness that it takes a whole community to be involved and it really takes a community to end homelessness.”

Part of the event will feature results from the 2018/19 annual report. Schmidt says the report isn’t all bad news.

“Some of the changes that have been happening in our community have been showing the shelter is currently not over capacity, it actually has bed spaces available every night. On average, with the intox mat program, there’s room for about 30 and we’re seeing about 15-18 a night right now.”

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Schmidt says that’s a sign that either people have found housing or could have moved back in with family members.

The weather is decent right now, but what happens when winter returns? Schmidt says there is a team in place and they want to be proactive in the event of over capacity again this winter.

“For the first time last winter we saw the shelter stats go up and we saw that Rotary House actually had more people showing up than they had room for in the shelter itself.”

Friday’s event is an opportunity for all to hear about the city’s homeless initiatives, talk about what’s working, and what needs to be tweaked.

It will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and includes a free BBQ lunch.