Saskatoon advocate calls for expanded First Nations approach to homelessness

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An advocate for homeless people in Saskatoon invited city council to join him for a late-night outing this week.

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“I’d like to challenge you, mayor and council, to come out, let’s go on a field trip at 2 a.m. Let’s go talk to (people facing homelessness), see what they want,” David Fineday told a meeting of council’s governance and priorities committee on Tuesday.

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Fineday, who is from Sweetgrass First Nation northwest of the city, said a space offering support and spirituality is needed.

Some people who need shelter aren’t using some of the spaces available to them, he said.

“These religious places, they’re there, they want to help, but they’re not doing it properly.”

Ward 3 Coun. Robert Pearce said he would take Fineday up on his offer.

After fire broke out in an encampment under University Bridge on Monday, Maj. Gordon Taylor, executive director of The Salvation Army’s Crossroads Residential Services, acknowledged that some people feel camping outdoors is the right option for them, even if space is available at the overnight warming centre for men at St. Mary’s Parish, or the Friendship Centre’s overnight warming space for women.

“It’s not that there’s nowhere to go, but for whatever reason some people still make those choices,” Taylor said. “We would certainly encourage them to choose something different.”

Between 65 and 90 men have been using the warming space for men each night. Taylor said it’s designed to hold up to 120.

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Separation of men and women tears families apart, Fineday said. The Saskatoon Tribal Council’s Emergency Wellness Centre and the Station 20 community centre are models he’d like to see more of, he told the committee.

The shelter plans outlined by The Mustard Seed, an Alberta non-profit contracted by the provincial government, don’t bring anything new to Saskatoon, he said.

“There’s 300 churches out there. Do you see one First Nations teepee out there?”

A point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness in Saskatoon this fall identified 1,499 people living without permanent shelter — almost three times the number found two years ago. The last count, in 2022, identified 550 people.

Previous counts have highlighted the overrepresentation of Indigenous people within the homeless community.

“I hope city hall can step up — like tomorrow, not in March or next year. It has to be done today. I don’t want more people being lost on the street, no more freezing,” Fineday said.

The city has created a Community Encampment Response Plan to use federal funds from an unsheltered homelessness and encampments initiative.

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The plan includes a capital project valued at $4,483,122 for supportive housing units with a community space, and a study for a potential future community navigation centre. The city is taking a phased approach to implementing this plan in 2025 and 2026.

Fineday advocated for First Nations people to run a proper shelter space that would make people feel at home.

“There are a lot of religious groups that want to do that, but they don’t know how,” he said.

Shelter spaces are also needed on the city’s east side, rather then getting people to trek across the city, he added.

Fineday said he has tried to set up a meeting with Tribal Chief Mark Arcand, hoping to get STC to expand its wellness centre services to other parts of the city.

“I would like to have a centre like that at Station 20. I would also like to have one on the east side … it’s going to take more than one,” he said.

“I know a lot of people who utilize that place, but it needs to be expanded.”

Responded to Fineday’s comments, Arcand said he has a good heart and that he hasn’t been intentionally avoiding him.

He said the Salvation Army has been trying to learn and work with First Nations to serve the city’s homeless population, adding that STC staff have been hired to offer smudging at St. Mary’s.

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Arcand noted that couples are also separated inside the wellness centre as a safety precaution, but staff try to get them to a point where they can be in their own home together.

He said STC hasn’t had much contact with The Mustard Seed, and he remains concerned that it’s a religious group that will try to work with homeless people without taking a First Nations approach.

Appropriate funding would be needed for the wellness centre to expand its services, Arcand added.

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