P.A. city council nixes suggestion to help homeless people return to home communities

It is also the centre for health care services for people across northern Saskatchewan.

Coun. Tony Head said he received a lot of feedback from people who disagreed with the idea that the city should transport people elsewhere.

“There’s a lot wrong with this motion I have to say. First off, we don’t administer bus services in our community. If anything, we contract our own services out and we have issues with our busing today,” he said.

There also needs to be discussion with the communities where the people would be going, Head stated.

“Neighboring communities that would probably have a say with us dropping off people back in the community that maybe have been kicked out for whatever reason, maybe left or maybe don’t have a place to go there either,” he said.

Multiple people pointed that the termination of the Saskatchewan Transport Company (STC) in 2017 is also to blame.

The STC cancellation has hurt the province quite a bit and now cities are seeing the results, Head commented.

“This is passing the buck and or passing off the problem to potentially other communities. There are reasons why people are here in our community.”

The Prince Albert Grand Council does have a staff person that helps recently-released prisoners connect with rides to their home community.

Shawn Frasier, CEO of the John Howard Society of Saskatchewan, said that often prisoners do end up with no way home after being released from jail.

“They get released and they have a hard time getting to where they need to go. That’s an issue everywhere, but it’s more so of an issue here in Saskatchewan since we lost the STC,” he said. “That was definitely one of the affects that our organization felt of that change and probably nowhere more so than P.A. just because it’s really the gateway to the North.”

Frasier emphasized that prisoners who don’t come back in contact with the justice system have supports and providing a way to get the ones home that want to go is a basic support.

He also said that communities in the North often have high travelling distances that make the challenge that much greater.

The John Howard Society is a prisoner advocacy organization and the Saskatchewan chapter is based in Regina but operates an office in Prince Albert.

They sometimes can help prisoners get to where they want to go but don’t have the resources to match the level of need.

The jails themselves will have prisoners come up with a release plan, but that doesn’t mean that someone is available to pick them up.

While council did not grant Edward’s wish to allocate $25,000 in next year’s budget towards the transport initiative, they did support the idea of having the new Community Safety and Wellbeing Co-ordinator investigate the notion.

Edward’s reiterated that his motion was not to force people to go places they don’t want to go.

“I emphasize that this wasn’t a forced thing. You can’t do that. This was [for] people that want to go home to their community,” he said.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

P.A. city council nixes suggestion to help homeless people return to home communities

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