Regina city councillors call on province to do more on homelessness

In the growing homeless encampment in Regina’s Heritage neighbourhood, one city councillor said there are people ready to get into housing who can’t access those supports.

That’s from an open letter Victoria Flores, Regina Ward 6 councillor, wrote to the Government of Saskatchewan and Social Services Minister Terry Jenson.

She said there are about 20 people at the encampment in Core Community Park who have been assessed and are ready and willing to get into housing, but no moves to help have been made by the ministry.

“When the city raised the need for space with your ministry, the response was to ask the city to find a building. No commitment came with it,” she wrote in the letter.

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The letter, as a whole, addressed a wider problem that councillors and mayors have been discussing for a while — growing social services and health needs. But they believe the provincial government isn’t stepping up, so city services have had to fill in gaps.

What volunteers at the camp have asked for, Flores wrote, is addictions support, health care on site and social services on site on a regular basis to get people connected to supports – none of which are things the city can provide.

“What is needed are more front-line social workers who can sit with people, connect them to services and walk them toward housing. That capacity is provincial,” the letter read.

Flores wrote that councillors are supportive of the province’s increase in funding for extreme weather spaces and community outreach – $2.04 million in annual funding, up from $1.43 million.

But she also pointed out that the province’s supportive housing investment under the Provincial Approach to Homelessness was 155 units for both Regina and Saskatoon combined, when the most recent homelessness count in Regina alone found nearly five times that number in need.

“The resources do not come close to matching what we are dealing with, and no amount of coordination fixes that. When an outreach worker has nowhere to refer someone, the work stops there,” Flores wrote.

In the letter, the councillors asked for three things from the government. First, for initiatives dedicated to getting people into housing first, and then addressing any other issues, to be funded at the level of need.

“We are asking that the next provincial budget include dedicated, multi-year funding for permanent supportive housing,” Flores wrote.

They’re also asking for income support rates for SIS and SAID to be increased to the point where people on those programs can afford to pay rent.

“When a shelter benefit is less than the cheapest place available, that is not a budgeting problem. It is a housing problem,” read the letter.

The letter acknowledged that SIS and SAID rates have recently increased, but said they started at an inadequate rate and the increases haven’t kept up with inflation.

And she said they’re asking the government to stop discharging people from hospitals and jails into homelessness. The letter said the ministry should have a cross-ministry discharge protocol within six months and that the province should report on how many people leave provincial care into homelessness.

The councillors are asking for a meeting before the end of September, and for the minister to come to the neighbourhoods in Regina that are dealing with these problems, to meet the people experiencing homelessness, and to talk to front-line workers.

“Regina is ready to work with you. We are asking you to show us that the province is ready to work with Regina,” read the letter.

Social services responds

Minister Jenson didn’t provide a response to the letter, but the Ministry of Social Services did.

In a statement, it said homelessness is a complex issue, the responsibility for which is shared among all levels of government.

The ministry declined to address Flores’ allegation that 20 people were not getting the help they were ready for, saying it wouldn’t provide details about individuals to protect their privacy.

The statement also pointed to the government investments it’s already been making in supportive housing, emergency shelters and street outreach services — saying it’s put more than $10 million into homelessness services in Regina.

Finally, the statement ended by talking about income supports, explaining that SIS clients can choose direct payment for rent and that income assistance rates have risen over the past several years — though Flores contended in her letter that neither of those measures is sufficient for the programs’ needs.