The federal government finally recognizes that Northern Ontario has a homelessness problem, too, cutting in Living Space in Timmins to money to help.
The shelter and its programs are getting $1.6-million over the next four years from the “Reaching Home” program.
Executive director Jason Sereda says a portion of that goes to developing a community advisory board.
“That might mean creating street outreach programs,” he notes. “ That might mean increasing our shelter capacity. It could mean a lot of things, but what it really means is that we’ll be coming up with solutions as a community together.”
The goal is to end homelessness in Timmins by 2025.
“So if we’re doing it right,” Sereda predicts, “it’ll mean Living Space no longer has to respond as much to emergency shelter and there’ll be less people living on the street, and we’ll be able to shift our focus to preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place.”
Living Space is also getting $130,000 a year for the next two years for outreach, intake and assessment.
