After finding a lack of success in their attempt to gather funding, the John Howard Society has reexamined their proposal for Cold Lake.
“I think, to be perfectly honest, we had to reformulate because there just wasn't enough money to achieve what we wanted to achieve. The $400,000 we were asking for just wasn't in the cards right now,” said Chris Hay, executive director of the John Howard Society of Alberta.
Earlier this year, in March, Hay came in front of Cold Lake City Council to request support for starting a mat program in the city for homeless men. The program proposed would run seven days a week for 12 hours overnight. Men could show up, would be given a mat to sleep on, as well as a hot meal. Staffed by at least two people every night, the men would be required to leave by a certain time each morning.
For that program, council was asked to commit around $400,000 per year for the first two or three years.
Hay was back at council last Tuesday (Dec. 8) to present the new vision of the Cold Lake John Howard Society Formation Group, scaling back their immediate goal significantly. Instead of a full fledged mat program, which they would still like to ultimately achieve, in the meantime an outreach program has been deemed more attainable.
“I think starting a little bit slower with this program and probably a quarter of the cost to try and build capacity to try and achieve what we really want to achieve. Ultimately, we want to achieve this mat centre crisis program,” explained Hay, adding that their end goal is still the same.
“Starting out with this outreach program is still fine, it's still needed in the community. The outreach program is a means to an end – there's a bigger vision here.”
The group's new request is that the city fully fund the Cold Lake John Howard Society Outreach Program at a cost of $88,850 for the first year, with the possibility of a two year extension. Eighty per cent of the funding would cover the cost for the salary of one employee, the remaining 20 per cent would be used for office supplies just as a telephone and stationary.
The one employee would act as an outreach worker, making referrals for clients and taking them around to complete tasks such as getting set up at a bank. They would also serve as the executive director of the Cold Lake John Howard Society, working to secure additional funding and speaking with government officials.
“My goal is to work with this person so that we can limit the city. My goal would be to try and reduce the city from $88,850 to something lower for 2017 and then in 2018 lower again, by basically replacing the funding,” said Hay.
To show the need in the community for such a program, letters of support were gathered from other similar local groups. In a letter from the Dr. Margaret Savage Crisis Centre, it stated that in 2014 the centre received 812 help line calls from men. Of those, 435 were for crisis support and 377 were seeking access to resources and information. Those calls amounted to close to 11,000 minutes staff spent assisting men in the community.
With the current economic situation, Hay believes that need for outreach programs and support is only amplified.
“From a criminological/physiological perspective, if a government's going to put money into social funding it absolutely needs to be done at all times, but it's paramount it needs to be done in a situation where we're having an economic financial constraint. When people are losing their job, especially people in this area who might have gone from overtime and getting $180,000 a year to zero, and having a tremendous amount of debt and not a lot of assets because they're young, that's going to put a very big crunch on your community.”
Should council approve the request from the John Howard Society, their next step will be finding a building to set up an office in, as well as hiring who will be the executive director. Ideally, if council gives their approval, the outreach program could be up and running by February or March, 2016.
“It sounds very doable in terms of what they want to accomplish in the City of Cold Lake, so I think we can form a partnership. If it gets funding I'm sure we can find a place for it to be out of,” said Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland. “One could say it's a downloading of provincial responsibility but in the end these are people living in the City of Cold Lake. I think we have to take a look at whether or not council wants to fund it, especially with the way the economy is now it's tough”
The issue of whether or not to fund the John Howard Society outreach program will be back before council at a future meeting.
