Sixty-eight-year-old Don Campbell stayed at the Saskatoon Tribal Council’s (STC) downtown wellness centre for four months earlier this year after his wife of three years died, and he had nowhere else to go.
“Otherwise, I don't know what I would’ve done. I wouldn't have killed myself, but I don't think I'd have my dignity back that I have now today,” he said.
“I didn't want to go to a shelter, but I went to the shelter, and that was the best thing that ever happened to me since she passed away.”
Campbell says he understands there are negative perceptions of the shelter, but adds it’s hard for people to know what the shelter really is unless you’ve been in need.
“Homelessness is not a thing that anybody really wants. I can tell you that right now,” he said.
“Some people, they don't want to go to the shelter, some people do. But my objective is to tell people, 'Take the shelter because it'll help you. It’ll help you get back on your feet and everything else in your life.'”
Campbell now lives in a low-income apartment on his own—one of the success stories that Tribal Chief Mark Arcand highlighted to people during an open house at the STC’s new wellness centre in the Fairhaven neighbourhood.
“I think there was some great response, but there's also some good questions from communities,” he said.
Arcand wanted to make clear that homelessness is not the issue of one single neighbourhood or race.
“It's our entire community. It's our entire city, and I think people need to understand that and be educated about it,” he said.
William Davison and his wife took it upon themselves to buy 27 winter jackets totalling nearly $3,000 and donate them to the shelter on Wednesday.
“It was a chunk of change there's no question, but I mean what are you going to do? Let them starve? Let them be cold,? Let them die in the cold,” he questioned.
“It's a community. I live in that community, and I should do something to help.”
Davison says he’s heard the complaints of people living near the downtown shelter and understands those complaints could be echoed by people living in Fairhaven.
“They say homelessness [is] drugs, alcohol, stealing,” he said.
“Instead of saying homelessness [is] helpless, traumatized, abandonment, ignored, helpless. They don't equate the two with that, because if they did, then how could you not help?”
Arcand says the STC will begin transferring people from the downtown location on November 23, when space for 106 people will be available.
He stressed that the wellness centre is different from organizations like The Lighthouse.
“We've provided a different system, which is about healing, which is about dealing with trauma, which is actually trying to get people healthier, so they have a quality of life,” he said.
“We're not just housing people just for them for sleep and not deal with their issues. Because if you don't deal with that issue we're just going to have a continuation of problems.”
Arcand says the lease for the new facility at 415 Fairmont Drive is up on March 31, 2023, and while the STC will be looking to negotiate a longer lease, he says the length will depend on results and outcomes.
