Arcand criticizes plan for temporary homeless shelter in Saskatoon

Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Mark Arcand wasn’t happy to learn about the city’s plan to construct a temporary “enhanced” emergency shelter at the former Saskatoon Transportation Company building on Pacific Avenue this fall.

Construction of the facility would require roughly $250,000 in renovations, and the completed shelter would include showers, bathrooms, a kitchen and room for 30 to 40 beds. City council still needs to give the go-ahead for an 18-month lease at its September 25 meeting. If approved, the shelter would likely open before the end of the year.

Arcand’s organization operates the 106-bed Emergency Wellness Centre in Fairhaven, which has been the subject of significant debate since it opened in 2022. He said he’s worried about the plans for the new facility.

“As a service provider, I’m very concerned these 30 beds are not going to be adequate in our city in a short amount of time, due to the amount of homelessness we see in the city of Saskatoon,” Arcand said.

Instead of moving forward with the plan, Arcand said he wants the city and province to focus on building warming shelters to ensure nobody is left outside in the cold this winter.

“Salvation Army is at full capacity and we’re at full capacity. When we see only 30 beds opening up right now, it’s not going to be effective,” Arcand said.

“We need warm-up shelters for the winter. We just need to redefine this funding as soon as possible,” he said.

“If those facilities don’t open as per the City of Saskatoon, we can actually redirect that funding to these warm-up shelters and have a proper plan throughout the winter through next spring to actually open up these shelters.”

This is the first time either city council or the province has heard Arcand’s proposal for warming shelters because, he said, nobody is talking to him or others at the tribal council before making decisions about shelters.

“We have too many bureaucrats from the City of Saskatoon administration making decisions without being in the trenches and working in homelessness,” he stated. “They’re making decisions that are affecting the entire city without even talking to the service providers.”

According to a statement released by the Ministry of Social Services in April, if and when one of the 30-bed shelter spaces opens, there will likely be a reduction in the number of spaces at the tribal council’s Emergency Wellness Centre.

Arcand said the Fairhaven shelter could lose 30 of its beds to the proposed downtown facility, and said he’s not happy with the agreement his organization signed with the city earlier this year.

“As these two 30-bed shelters open up, we get cut down to 65 beds but the Salvation Army doesn’t get cut,” he said.

“Why two different funding agreements when we’re trying to serve people and help people? I feel like we’re being targeted by our partner, and I don’t appreciate it because I had to sign that agreement under duress because we needed to help people.”

Arcand said he’s requested additional funds to improve the shelter in Fairhaven, but without success.

“We did get a small investment at the start from the province to support our facility. It was to upgrade the facility to proper fire code. Ever since then, we’ve been hounding and asking and we can’t get proper funding for showers. We’re not serving people properly,” Arcand said.

“Our commercial kitchen – we can employ people that are homeless that can actually be getting jobs and moving on – (but) nobody is listening to the service provider. Salvation Army has a commercial kitchen and all this stuff, and we don’t have it. Why isn’t there proper investments for everybody else to be treated fairly?”

The proposed temporary shelter for Saskatoon is to be operated by The Mustard Seed, an Alberta-based Christian non-profit organization. The group will also run the second shelter when it opens.

Arcand said he doesn’t think The Mustard Seed will properly support First Nations people dealing with homelessness.

“I have no faith in Mustard Seed because they don’t know nothing about First Nations people. Their population when they work in Calgary is with newcomers. They don’t deal with what we’re dealing with in Saskatoon, which is the First Nations people, the mental health, addictions, violence. They have zero clue,” he explained.

If it was up to Arcand, he said he would have the Saskatoon Tribal Council run the new facility.

“I believe STC is doing a good job,” he said, adding that the organization houses 50 families and takes children to school on a daily basis.

Asked if he has any plans to run in Saskatoon’s upcoming municipal election, Arcand said no. The chief said that at the end of the day, he’s not focused on politics – he’s focused on helping people.