Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud is set to start a new role as senior advisor on ending chronic homelessness to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew.
Earlier this month, the province announced a new plan to address chronic homelessness, including addressing encampments on a case by case basis.
“ I think the core piece that this plan brings to the table is housing that is going to be brought online over the coming months and years to address particular needs of folks living in encampments today,” said Whitecloud. “ We can’t actually solve people living in encampments, we can’t offer them anything unless we can offer them housing.”
Whitecloud says there are an estimated 700 people living in encampments in the province, not accessing any overnight supports. She says in Winnipeg, there are an estimated 3500 people experiencing homelessness.
“We’re trying to create a system where people in encampments today have the hope that housing units are coming, can see that other encampments that they might walk by are starting to get moved into housing, and build that momentum to have people actually believe in their capacity to be housed.”
“We know from other jurisdictions that when you actually make the housing attractive, 90 per cent of folks living in encampments want to move into it.”
Whitecloud says that helping people who may not want to move into housing offered by the government will come down to a person centred approach.
“ I’ve come to know doing frontline work, many vets who are like, ‘I just can’t sleep inside,’ and so, okay, so what’s that about, and what are the alternatives?” she said. “Is it more of a, ‘well, I don’t actually want to move into housing here because I have a home community somewhere else’? Okay, So a big part of this announcement was also a bunch of flex funding.”
“So what does it mean to get you back to your home community? What does it look like to get you back to your home community? What resources do you need to make that happen? So it really is going to be figuring out with that 10 per cent of folks, what is it that’s in the way and then trying to problem solve that.
Whitecloud said another part of her role will be addressing systemic issues that can lead people into homelessness in the first place.
“ An example could be you don’t get to leave incarceration until close to 10:30, but you need to show up for your rehab or detox bed by 8:00am. And so that two hour missed window can lead people to needing to wait a whole day, and sometimes they choose to use during that day, and then they aren’t ready for their path to recovery.”
She says that for every person supported out of homelessness in Canada right now, 1.5 more are becoming homeless.
While Whitecloud didn’t draft the plan herself, she says she believes in it because of its emphasis on housing.
“ This fund starts with housing with supports. And that’s why I feel comfortable putting my name and my career behind it, because I think that we can’t address homelessness without new units, and those new units have to be suitable for the people that are looking to move into them.”
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