New street outreach, sobering centre in Yellowknife provide safe space for youth

A new outreach program and sobering space for youth launched in Yellowknife recently, and already has the people who run it looking for more ways to support young people in the city. 

The program is run by Home Base, an organization that supports youth, and started running on Oct. 10, with a "soft launch."

"It's been pretty steady, but we've had some really good support," April Green, Home Base's associate director of programs and operations, said. 

The program uses a vehicle that was donated from Avid Insurance, Peace Hills and Burgundy Diamond Mines, and will use it to pick up young people from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. each night and drop them off where they need to go. 

The sobering centre, which has four beds, is staffed for 20 hours a day. The only time it isn't staffed is from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Green said. 

'No place for youth to go'

Tammy Roberts, Home Base's executive director, said before these services launched, there was "no place for youth to go" when they need help, other than the emergency room or to RCMP cells. 

"We saw that people were in a place where they didn't know how to help these youth, or who to reach out to," Roberts said. "Since we returned from the [city] evacuation last fall, we saw more youth public intoxicated or/and under the influence of drugs." 

Green said the new program has so far been well-received by the youth who use it. 

"I think they feel like it's a safe program for them and they feel that they can trust the program," she said. 

More money needed to extend outreach hours

Green said the biggest challenge right now is that youth are sometimes intoxicated by 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., but the vehicle only starts operating at 8 p.m.

Extending the hours would require more funding, she said. Right now, the program is funded through the N.W.T.'s Department of Health and Social Services. 

That funding is slated to last until the end of March. 

"We're looking at other sources of funding to go beyond then, and also to expand so we can have the outreach vehicle out on the street more than just eight hours a day," Green said.

Roberts said they decided that staffing the sobering site for a longer period was more important, because ultimately youth need a place to go.

Roberts also emphasized that the outreach van is for all young people who need a safe ride home, not just for youth who are intoxicated. 

"We want them to be able to call so we can pick them up and give them a ride home. It doesn't have to be to a sobering site, it just has to be someplace safe," she said. 

Despite the vehicle's limited hours, Green said staff will still go out in the community during the day to pick up youth if they get a call. 

"And that, you know, coincides with having the staff at the sobering site for the 20 hours a day because at least then they have that place to go. They have that safe place to go," Green said.

Roberts said ideally they want the street outreach program to run 16 hours a day, but they also want to provide more support in other areas. 

"Having the sobering site staff 20 hours a day is a massive amount of money. So looking at the program for a year would be upwards of about $600,000," she said. 

Roberts said she doesn't think people in the city are aware of how many youth are homeless or struggling with addiction. 

'We've been trying really hard to highlight youth and have other people understand that there is a lot of work that needs to go into youth homelessness, to prevent adult homelessness," Roberts said.