Everyone was moved out of Tent City by October 1, 2019 (Photo by Shaun Penner)

By Sheena Roszell

homeless initiatives

Temporary Tent City dismantled with everyone having a warm place to go

Oct 2, 2019 | 12:14 PM

Tent city has been packed up and its residents have somewhere to go.

The city’s Community Housing and Homelessness Supervisor, Katherine Schmidt says during the daytime there is a drop-in program with the Saint Lawrence Centre (open 7 days/week 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and at night there are beds at Rotary House.

She says ‘tent city’ was just a temporary thing and as the September 30 deadline grew closer people started looking at what other options they had. Various things happened over the past month; some people moved into housing, some moved into the emergency shelter for supports there and others connected with family and friends.

“There were a few people that had family supports elsewhere that actually decided to get on buses and leave Grande Prairie. One person was working with the mobile addictions worker to go into a treatment program. We also have our Parkside project that has a couple of spots available,” she explained.

There is no longer anyone living in a tent by city hall and next year the city hopes to be proactive so there won’t be an issue like this again.

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“It happens every spring that we see people that just naturally gravitate to outside, so next year we are going to be pretty proactive in ensuring that people are aware what the supports are, working with our community to ensure that our community doesn’t have to see an area that grows to that extent where people are struggling with an indoor place to go.”

She says if it gets to the point where Rotary House has more people than they do bed space, then the city has a second place they will open to people in need.

“And that’s really what our goal is – no one this winter will be left without a place to go when it gets cold,” she said.

A location hasn’t been announced yet, but earlier this week, Rotary Club of Grande Prairie donated $1 million for a daytime homeless shelter.

“I think the good thing that’s really come out of this is our community has been so incredibly supportive. Our service providers have pulled together where everyone has been working extremely hard with everyone that has been in the transition site to really work on what’s the best option for everyone and to ensure that this transition went smoothly.”

Schmidt says the province gives them most of their funding and for several years has been a huge supporter of homeless initiatives across Alberta.

“They continue to be a huge funding supporter in seven of the major cities across the province of Alberta,” said Schmidt

She adds the grant funding through the province funds so much more than just their winter emergency response.

“It truly funds our housing first programs that are supporting individuals to get into housing with housing supports as well.”

At the beginning of September, about 35 tents were moved from in front of Rotary House to a temporary area fenced next to City Hall. The city promised by September 30 that everyone sleeping in a tent would be taken care of and moved out of that temporary site. As of October 1 (pictured above), there was no longer anyone living in Tent City.