On Friday, November 27, 2024, the 4th annual Prince Albert Homeless Committee held a meeting.
Community leaders gathered from many agencies for a cooperative interagency meeting to discuss and put forward a motion to address the urgent need to secure a location for a permanent shelter in Prince Albert.
Leaders at the Prince Albert Homeless Committee meeting gathered for a photo November 27, 2024 / Photo by Amber Bear
During the meeting a motion was put forward and the co-chair read out the motion during the meeting.
“Homeless Committee wants to establish a permanent shelter for the homeless, whereas location is being determined by Prince Albert Grand Council Urban Services,” said Geoff Despins, co-chair of the committee. “The zoning requirement is still being developed.”
The City of Prince Albert’s Mayor Bill Powalinsky and some council members were present and showed support in finding a location.
“I plan on giving these social issues an equal priority to economic development,” said Mayor Bill Powalinsky. “It’s time that we make a decision and we move things along; that’s really the key thing. Without the location, without this zoning, we’re dead in the water, and like I said, the council needs to work with the community; we need to look at evidence-based information.”
Some staggering stats that were shared during the Friday meeting were that the Prince Albert shelter didn’t have the capacity needed to house all that needed shelter and turned away 30 people needing the shelter and housed 35 people on any given night. There were 41 new people that needed to use the shelter, which was an increase from other years. It was also noted that there were 114 people moved into transitional housing this year.
As of now, no location has been approved yet, and the motion has been put forward to ensure a location would be found and a permanent shelter would be developed.
The PAGC Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte has stated that the PAGC will be contributing $50,000 towards the shelter once the location has been decided on.
During the meeting the committee handed out resources to help inform the public of Prince Albert warming shelters and the need to have the meeting at an earlier date in the year, before the snow falls to make preparations for the winter season.
