By Brady Ratzlaff

Homelessness program on track to meet goal as year five approaches

Jul 6, 2018 | 5:19 PM

People shared their experiences with homelessness at a Grande Prairie event at the Montrose Cultural Centre on Friday afternoon.

Katherine Schmidt, Homeless Initiatives Supervisor says it was exciting to see members of the Voice for the Voiceless committee share their experience with the audience.

“The Voice for the Voiceless group is brand new. It came together with people with lived experience that said, ‘you know what here’s what we think is going to end homelessness.’ There are about 22 members now in the group.”

Ninety-four people have been housed from the program this year alone with 451 since the plan started three years ago. The program has seen 61 people graduate, up from 42 last year.

The City is looking to piggy-back ideas from other communities.

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“We have a co-worker who uses the term, ‘rip off and duplicate.’ What that means is we can stop spending so much time on research and spend time on resources that are used in getting to our end goal. If we take a look at other communities, use ‘rip off and duplicate’ we can take methods that work elsewhere,” said Schmidt.

Schmidt adds that she recently had a conversation with a member of the Indigenous community who is traveling to Newfoundland to have a look at a Permanent House Support Project for ideas.

Grande Prairie is a transient City meaning the numbers are always going to change.

“There are constantly new individuals that are coming into our community, that are falling into homelessness that keep that number changing every year. We are seeing an influx of people coming here for work. At times someone may have $300 in their pocket, they spend their money and they don’t even have enough resources to get a bus ticket to get back to their home community,” added Schmidt.

The City does its Point-In-Time count every July which takes into account how many people have been living in homelessness in the Swan city for under a year. Schmidt adds last year’s percentage was very high.