A policy review is being promised by Saskatchewan’s government after two homeless men from the province say they were given one-way bus tickets to British Columbia.
Social Services Minister Donna Harpauer says the review and policy update will be done if the Saskatchewan Party is re-elected next month. She says Saskatchewan has a long-standing policy to buy such bus tickets – as most provinces do – but adds that is normally done when someone must return to their home province or needs to reunite with family.
The two aboriginal men, Charles Neil-Curly and Jeremy Roy, had been living at a North Battleford homeless shelter.
Neil-Curly says he left because his funding for his stay at the Lighthouse was cut off, so he asked someone with social services for a way out.
“I asked for a ticket and five minutes later I had it printed off and I was leaving that night,” he said.
Neil-Curly and Roy have received a warm welcome so far in Vancouver.
A crane service manager says he wants to offer jobs to the two men
And yesterday a ministry in Vancouver stepped up and is getting the two men – one who has significant mental health concerns – the help they need.
“Putting somebody on a bus and sending them out of the province is not the way to end homeless in anybody’s lives,” said Jeremy Hunka with the Union Gospel Mission.
He says the men will stay with them and get set up with case workers to come up with plans for jobs and housing.
The MLA for the Battlefords is responding to issues that have come to light after all of this transpired.
Staff at the Battleford’s Lighthouse are relieved that Neil-Curly and Roy are safe – but they say this situation is a symptom of a broken funding system by social services.
Manager Caitlin Glencross says in December their budget took a 90 per cent hit after the province assessed whether each of their clients should receive provincial funds to stay there.
“We can’t continue on this per diem system – that does not work. We are one of the only provinces in Canada that fund our shelters on a per diem basis. It’s a very archaic way of funding a shelter – in other provinces they give you a base amount and they say, you know, ‘compared to your last year’s numbers this is what your core funding is and that’s basically your operational cost,” she said.
Sask. Party Battleford MLA Herb Cox is defending his party’s record.
“I applaud the Lighthouse, they’re not turning anybody away – the take them, if somebody’s homeless they take them in and that’s what should be. We don’t want anybody in the street in cold weather. That’s certainly one of the priorities for this government is to look after those vulnerable people. But what was happening is some of these people were already either on social assistance federal or were from out of town and maybe were under a federal program getting paid for through the Lighthouse,” he said.
But it wasn’t just “some,” Glencross said. As of the December review, only 80 of the 700-plus people who had been previously funded under the province are still eligible. Recently, that meant an abrupt and drastic cut to the Lighthouse’s operating funds that’s led to dire predictions of a possible closure in coming months.
Cox insists the government isn’t leaving people or Lighthouse out to dry.
“We are now funding everybody for the first night… We’re not gonna see anybody out homeless on the street. Our concern is, we don’t want people, for want of a better word, double-dipping. If they don’t qualify or they have federal, we’re also working with the federal government through INAC and we’ve got a process worked out or are in the middle of working out a process where they will, where the individual bands can pay that and INAC can pay them back if it’s for people from out of town,” he said.
“Everybody gets the first night paid for. They do the paperwork the next day and they’ll make the decisions then going forward. And some of that we’re reviewing right now – or up until the election call – some of this is going to be retroactive. I think that’s going to go a long ways to alleviate the problems with the Lighthouse.”
With files from the Canadian Press