An event aiming to raise awareness on the homelessness issue in northern Saskatchewan is coming to La Ronge in February.
The “Share the Love Winter Sleep Out” put on by the Scattered Site Outreach Program is inviting participants to spend 18 hours outside during the winter, something they say many homeless people in the north do on a daily basis.
The event will begin at 2:00 pm on Valentine’s Day and will run overnight into the next day. Fundraising participants will raise money through every hour they are able to safely remain outside at the Scattered Site Program’s compound. Each participant can bring a backpack of items and a sleeping bag to keep them warm during the sleep out.
“(The participants) will have their eyes opened to what is a reality to a lot of people in the north,” said Jackie Ballantyne, an SSOP Community Outreach Worker. “There are people signed up and they are willing to go the distance or they will do their best.”
Ballantyne, along with her fellow outreach worker Sheldon Merriman, hope a wider dialogue around addiction and issues of homelessness in northern Saskatchewan will occur.
“I don’t know if people are ignoring it or what, but homelessness is out there,” said Merriman. “It is in our community, it is in the north and people need to accept that and we need to come to a solution.”
Merriman adds many people are unable to face their addictions because they do not have a roof over their head.
The ultimate goal of the Scattered Site Outreach Program is to build a homeless shelter, hospice and transitional housing facility.
Merriman says there are, unfortunately, no services like these available in the north.