After ending a pause on a rent-support program last week, the provincial government announced Friday more than 1,200 families and individuals in Manitoba have been connected with housing over the last year.
“As we continue working toward our goal of ending chronic homelessness, it’s important to meet people where they’re at so we can find the right path to housing,” Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said Friday in a news release.
“Together, we can help ensure people live in safety, dignity and stability.”
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
“It is a lot of work to actually get people living chronically homeless into housing, and helping them to learn how to organize themselves and live well,” Marion Willis, St. Boniface Street Links founder, said Friday.
Much of the credit goes to non-profit organizations that find places for people to live and ensure those battling addictions and accustomed to living outdoors can effectively transition to new lives. Old habits die hard, one service provider maintains.
“It is a lot of work to actually get people living chronically homeless into housing, and helping them to learn how to organize themselves and live well,” Marion Willis, St. Boniface Street Links founder, said Friday.
“They’re going to live the same way indoors as they lived outdoors until proper care plans” are put in place and carried out, Willis said. Many are still in “survival mode” while dealing with addiction and drug-related psychosis. What looks like a pile of garbage in an encampment may a collection tied to psychosis from using drugs, Willis said.
She said when Street Links visits, it’s like walking into an indoor encampment.
Street Links staff helps them get sorted in a non-judgmental way, she said: ‘Let’s put this stuff in a dish cupboard — let’s put the clothes in dressers and find some hangers.’ It’s a little bit at a time — helping them make that transition, because it is a big, big transition.”
She said there can be paranoia attached to the use of certain street drugs, and residents sometimes believe smoke detectors, doorbells and fire alarms are cameras watching them.
To make matter worse, the residents may be in the habit of collecting combustibles, which are a fire hazard, she said.
The province has said it wants to move away from relying on private landlords and build more public housing. Until that happens, the government needs to work with current available housing and provide wraparound supports, Willis said.
Street Links finds housing for two people every weekday and it remains a challenge.
“There’s been so many apartment buildings taken offline — people put out because of fires or not meeting fire code. We’ve ended up with a lot of displaced people,” said Willis. “These would be amongst the more difficult people to house.”
The province announced Friday government programs and community partnerships had helped connect hundreds of people with housing since November. That included:
— 77 who needed safe and appropriate housing so they could be discharged from hospital.
— 120 survivors of gender-based violence who were connected to Manitoba Housing.
— 725 homeless people or with precarious housing who were connected to Manitoba Housing.
— 120 people who received support from Housing First teams to ensure they could maintain their accommodations over the long term.
— More than 30 seniors who’d been residing in an emergency shelter.
— Nearly 130 people who were connected with housing in Brandon, Dauphin and Portage la Prairie and Winnipeg “from new initiatives launched last winter.”
Housing advocate and researcher Shauna MacKinnon questioned the province’s tally.
“Is it from the reporting of community organizations the province is funding to help house people” the University of Winnipeg professor and chair of the urban and inner-city studies department asked. “Community organizations have long been funded to support people into housing, so how does this year’s number compare to previous years?”
She said without that information it was hard to understand if the province was making an impact.
“It’s also hard to comment without knowing how many people moved into homelessness this past year,” said MacKinnon.
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
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