Review of Yellowknife's street outreach program says it lacks sustainable funding
Review says outreach workers are paid half of what shelter workers make
A review of the city's street outreach program says it lacks the funding to keep it going.
Scott Robertson from the consultancy firm Triage Metrix, which was contracted to do the review, presented a proposal for a revised street outreach program at city hall on Monday.
"I'm not pointing a finger at you, particularly as the city, but as the administrator of this, I know it's a challenge to find sustainable funding," Robertson said.
He added that the outreach workers for the street outreach program are paid half of what the shelter workers are paid.
"So how do you expect an agency to retain, recruit, retain quality staff in a competitive marketplace...when you can make more money working at Tim Horton's," Robertson said.
The Yellowknife Womenʼs Society runs the program and transports vulnerable people from where they are, especially if they're not safe, to a shelter.
Started in 2017, the program provides 12 hours of daily outreach. In 2023, they offered around 8,400 rides.
The city council will now come up with a response to Robertson's report and discuss the next steps.
No single funding source
Robertson said funding is needed to manage staffing challenges to run the program and it needs to come from different levels of government.
Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty said the city looks forward to discussing the report with other levels of government.
Alty said the city is hopeful that some other funders will come to the table to do the enhancements and recommendations as outlined in the review.
The program currently receives $360,000 in annual funding from the City of Yellowknife.
Robertson said the costs to run the revised program is about $850,000 in its first year, $821,423 in year two and $950,820 in year three.
"(Our) recommendations focus around providing more outreach activities, referrals to social services ... as well as expanded hours or shifting the hours to meet the needs really to be a bit later in the day more to match the hours that the shelters accept people to come in."
In February, a similar proposal to increase Yellowknife's Street Outreach funding to about $1.1 million was rejected by city council.
Robertson said the Yellowknife's street outreach program is valuable, as 90 per cent of the surveyed people are aware of it or have used it.
He said to lose it would be detrimental to the most vulnerable residents of the city.
A territorial problem
Robertson said the growing homeless population in Yellowknife is not just a city issue, but also a territorial one as most people come from other parts of the territory.
"Around 90 per cent of the people that we interviewed from the street population are not from Yellowknife. They've come from other communities in the N.W.T. So this is not just a Yellowknife problem, but the problem is visited upon Yellowknife from the rest of the territory," Robertson said.
Robertson says people often migrate to Yellowknife due to lack of resources in smaller communities like Gamètì. This includes a place to sleep after hours or just finding a warm shelter during the winter season.
Robertson urged the city to invest in such services in the city which will support people from other communities. And later try replicating similar outreach services and support in the rest of the territory.
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