A resident has launched an online fundraiser to help the Yellowknife Women’s Society purchase a new vehicle for its street outreach program.
That came after the past week’s extreme cold, during which no street outreach van was available at times, highlighted the program’s need for more reliable transportation.
Kim Robinson, the program coordinator, said street outreach currently has two vehicles.
One, she said, has been in the shop for six months awaiting a part. The other vehicle has issues with its locking system and little to no heat, which is a problem when the city experiences frigid temperatures and increased demand for the service.
“For staff to be driving it, it’d be just like being outside,” Robinson said.
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The van was off the road on Friday due to severe cold temperatures.
Robinson said staff are also unable to roll down the van’s windows, so they have to exit the vehicle into the cold any time they need to speak with someone or hand out water and snacks.
“It’s on its last leg,” she said of the vehicle. “It has way too many kilometres on it and there’s probably more money to put into it to fix it. Might be cheaper to get a new one.”
Robinson added the vehicle is used seven days a week for 12 hours a day.
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As of Tuesday evening, a GoFundMe fundraiser for a new vehicle had raised $3,665 and was no longer accepting donations. A new version of the fundraiser was created with the stated aim of funds going directly to the women society’s registered charity.
The street outreach program began operating in 2017 with the aim of addressing the needs of people experiencing homelessness and reducing non-emergency calls to the RCMP and emergency medical services. The program provides people safe rides to locations in the city, as well as water and snacks.
The program gave 11,512 rides, or roughly 30 a day, to vulnerable people in its first year.
In the longer term, the Yellowknife Women’s Society plans to upgrade the program to an “advanced care model.”
Executive director Renee Sanderson told city councillors in October that such a model would include emergency first aid, case management, harm reduction and some public health services in a mobile care unit, as well as foot patrols.
Implementing those changes requires more funding. The program’s current annual budget includes $360,000 provided by the city as well as $10,000 from donations.
City councillors have said they support the women’s society’s proposal in principle but hope to see new MLAs push the territory to provide funding, rather than the municipality.
Councillors decided against including funding for the project in the city’s 2024 budget.
The municipality’s draft budget does, however, currently include one-time funding of $100,000 to hire a consultant to review and provide an operating model recommendation for the program, and to draft a multi-year funding proposal to be presented to the federal and territorial governments.
