Lighthouse nears second location, opens up on details of October outbreak

Things have been busy at Saskatoon’s Lighthouse.

A COVID-19 outbreak was declared at its facility downtown on Oct. 23. According to executive director Don Windels, more than two dozen cases have been identified.

“We know of 27 cases at the current time— that’s both staff and tenants,” he told 650 CKOM Wednesday morning. “It’s split down the middle… maybe a little more tenants than staff.”

Staff have been busy, attempting to contact families to make sure they know their loved one is safe.

“We’re taking care of them. The individuals that are in their own rooms are self-isolating, and we’re checking on them (a few times a day). We do have to go in with full gear. The staff are handling it quite well— but it’s stressful,” Windels said.

On the other end of operations, Windels said the organization may be getting more space in the near future.

With new federal funding out, the Lighthouse is looking to split out the shelter.

“We are looking at the possibility of moving our shelters to another location… We’ve been looking at this for several years now.
How can we better serve the people we’re serving? How can we be better neighbours downtown? How can we keep the people both safe and the perception safe,” he said.

“We are looking at a second location, we don’t have everything in place as of yet. But the pieces are coming together.”

Windels said the Lighthouse is meeting with the province Wednesday, to discuss more.

“The costs will go up. We won’t have the benefit of the economy of the scale that we have,” he explains.

“We will have to have additional security, (and) the funding model for shelters in the province does need to be changed… we’re hopeful that things will change so that shelters across the province would be funded properly.”

When it comes to funding, the Lighthouse has reached out to the province for help in terms of staffing.

Windels said there has not been an answer yet, but they’ve begun hiring people prior to approval.

“We can’t wait for the province to give official approval. It would be nice if they (would) speed that process up,” he said.

Staff numbers are down, with staff stretched at the facility to doing work outside of their regular day-to-day duties, according to Windels.

With some forced to isolate due to exposure worries, it’s added “extra pressure,” he said.

“Health has asked some of our staff, because they’ve been in close contact, to self-isolate. They have to follow those instructions otherwise they could be fined,” Windels explained.

With donations not being accepted at this time at the Lighthouse, Windels said their ask from the community has changed as the COVID-19 outbreak has evolved.

“Because we can’t have volunteers come in like we are used to, there (are) added costs and there is added pressure on staff to fill in positions. (Normally), my first ask (to the public) would come down and volunteer. In this case, we can’t do that.

Unfortunately, we’re left to spend more money,” he said.

“Donations are always welcome, it would definitely help relieve some of the pressure that we’re experiencing.”

Windels said there is no current timeframe in place to announce the Lighthouse’s second location, adding that there is a lack of economy to the scale that would be typical if there wasn’t an ongoing global pandemic.