Prairie Harm Reduction to stay open 24/7 due to no plan from city

Saskatoon’s Prairie Harm Reduction said it will stay open 24/7 this week to help those battling the elements from the first blast of winter.

The organization said it’s doing this because the City of Saskatoon has no cold weather plan in place at the moment to help those in need.

“We made a decision on Monday knowing the snow was coming and that those temperatures were changing and knowing the cold weather strategy for the city had not been activated yet,” said executive director for Prairie Harm Reduction Kayla DeMong.

“We knew that people were going to need somewhere to sleep, rest and stay out of the cold – so we decided for one week to stay open 24/7.”

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DeMong said Prairie Harm Reduction could help accommodate about 45 people at a time, but she mentioned on Tuesday they’ve already dealt with over 70 people.

She did add that some of those people were coming and going and weren’t all staying there full-time.

DeMong suggests the decision to remain open 24/7 has stretched their resources and it will not be sustainable for them after this week.

“It’s not something that we can sustain. It’s incredibly expensive. The resources needed to operate 24/7 is just something that we just can’t sustain,” she said.

“We have staff and management that have rearranged their schedules to cover these shifts. It is not something that we can continue to ask of them.”

DeMong feels while work between the city and province has started earlier than in previous years, she finds that the two sides are late to the game every year.

“The strategy is starting to be worked on earlier than it used to be, but we’re still halfway through November and almost into December and the warming shelters have yet to open and operate in the way they were designed to,” she explained.

The City of Saskatoon did respond to the question of why no cold weather plan is in place right now.

The city said a report to the council on the warming shelter plan will be made available to the public on Nov. 20 in the public agenda around 1:30 p.m.

The city added its Winter Emergency Response Plan was revised in October and mentioned that its made up of over 30 different partners.

Since Prairie Harm Reduction is open 24/7 for the rest of the week, DeMong is asking for donations of socks and food to help keep people warm and fed.