New street outreach, sobering centre in Yellowknife provide safe space for youth
CBC
A new outreach program and sobering space for youth launched in Yellowknife recently, and already has the people who run it looking for more ways to support young people in the city.
The program is run by Home Base, an organization that supports youth, and started running on Oct. 10, with a "soft launch."
"It's been pretty steady, but we've had some really good support," April Green, Home Base's associate director of programs and operations, said.
The program uses a vehicle that was donated from Avid Insurance, Peace Hills and Burgundy Diamond Mines, and will use it to pick up young people from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. each night and drop them off where they need to go.
The sobering centre, which has four beds, is staffed for 20 hours a day. The only time it isn't staffed is from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Green said.
Tammy Roberts, Home Base's executive director, said before these services launched, there was "no place for youth to go" when they need help, other than the emergency room or to RCMP cells.
"We saw that people were in a place where they didn't know how to help these youth, or who to reach out to. Roberts said. "Since we returned from the [city] evacuation last fall, we saw more youth in public intoxicated or/and under the influence of drugs."
Green said the new program has so far been well-received by the youth who use it.
"I think they feel like it's a safe program for them and they feel that they can trust the program," she said.
Green said the biggest challenge right now is that youth are sometimes intoxicated by 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., but the vehicle only starts operating at 8 p.m.
Extending the hours would require more funding, she said. Right now, the program is funded through the N.W.T.'s Department of Health and Social Services.
That funding is slated to last until the end of March.
"We're looking at other sources of funding to go beyond then, and also to expand so we can have the outreach vehicle out on the street more than just eight hours a day," Green said.
Roberts said they decided that staffing the sobering site for a longer period was more important, because ultimately youth need a place to go.
It was just a few months ago that U.S. President Donald Trump told the world he doesn’t want Canadian cars.
Flu cases across Canada are on the rise and may push hospitals to their limits over the holidays and into the new year, leading health officials in regions across the country to warn people not to visit emergency rooms unless it's absolutely necessary.
More than 30 years after Canada's military allowed women to serve in combat roles, it's now specifically designing uniforms and body armour to fit their bodies.
The holiday season has arrived in Thunder Bay, and that means reduced hours, or closures, for businesses, city offices, and other amenities.
As Toronto’s food scene continues to grow, some in the industry say the pool of professional chefs hasn’t kept up with demand.
Police have charged a truck driver from the Hamilton area in a hit-and-run crash that killed a tow truck operator who had been stopped while helping a driver on the side of Highway 401 outside Woodstock, Ont.
Power has been restored to most of Haines Junction after a problem earlier on Monday at the local generating station.
A 56-year-old man will return to court on Tuesday for a charge of second-degree murder, laid in a case London police have called an act of femicide.
The chairman of the committee leading Newfoundland and Labrador's independent review of the Churchill Falls memorandum of understanding with Quebec is backing the impartiality of his three-man team.
The province has taken a major step toward restarting its onshore natural gas industry.
Allan Legere, serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Alberta, has been denied a request for full parole.
Winnipeg’s Granite Curling Club has asked a judge to decide whether the City of Winnipeg can ignore a provincial decision about residential housing slated to rise next to the club.
A Saskatoon woman says she watched her neighbour's police standoff play out in real time on social media.