ATHABASCA — A mat program at its most basic level is a mat on the floor with some blankets but the Athabasca Cares Community Housing Society (ACCHS) has gone one step further.
In a residential building, cots have been placed in a communal area, for safety reasons, blankets are provided but there’s a lot more happening there, said ACCHS president Krystal Zahara in a Dec. 28 interview.
“Our clients are also able to interact with our staff; we have puzzles and board games and cards. Quite often our program coordinator, Sidney Schooley, will teach the clients a new rummy game or the other day we were building gingerbread houses and cookies,” said Zahara. “We’re able to provide these really basic necessities for our clients, but we're also able to do some community building with them and some trust building and that's really important.”
Clients can shower, wash their clothing with a generous donation of a brand-new washing machine from Home Hardware in Athabasca and there is a clothing room stocked full of clothing from under to outerwear including footwear.
“They can pick out their own clothing, everything that they might need, and it really adds an element of humanity when someone is allowed to go and pick out something as simple as a pair of pants and try them on to make sure they fit and not just getting what's given to you but actually being able to pick out something that fits nice or feels nice,” she said.
The group is trying to keep the exact location under wraps, so it’s not posted on any websites, but they have let businesses know so they can refer people to the program.
“We know that word is going to get out because clients are going to talk about it, but we're going to, as much as we can, keep the location private just out of respect for our clients,” said Zahara. “And then also there are people utilizing the shelter who are quite vulnerable; they maybe have domestic situations and things like that, so, we try to do everything we can to protect them because it's just what feels right.”
The program opened its doors Dec. 15 and has anywhere from one to three clients every night they are open.
“Sometimes if there's no one at the shelter when we open, we'll drive around looking for people and ... the businesses that are open after hours know that if they see someone who's struggling or homeless or needs a place to stay, they can call us, and we'll come and pick them up,” she said.
The program was initially running Monday to Thursday, but due to generous donations from the community, ACCHS has been able to hire additional staff and add Friday and some Saturdays.
“We have received close to $5,000 in cash donations from the community in the last month,” said Zahara. “So, with that generosity comes us extending our business hours.”
They could be open seven nights a week, but the group felt it was more important to be open longer over winter with four to five nights per week than rushing to seven nights and being out of money to fund the program before winter is over.
“We're trying to be really smart with our money because it's important for us to be able to keep the program open longer, rather than run out of money halfway through February and then have to close the mat program down.”
The goal is to be open seven nights a week though and the group will re-evaluate where they are financially every few weeks.
“So far, we've seen five separate clients, and to put that into perspective when the mat program was open in 2020/21 (by the Athabasca Native Friendship Centre), they saw six unique clients over the time they were open, which was about four months,” said Zahara. “So, in less than three weeks, we’ve almost seen the same number of clients that they did in four months.”
The group is stocked up on clothing and bedding, but they need to gift certificates to restaurants so clients can get a hot meal during the day as well as gift cards to clothing stores for items they may not have on hand in the right size, and for Buy Low or Tipton’s Your Independent Grocer for groceries.
“We go through a ton of coffee and cream and sugar,” she said. “And then it's kind of full circle because you're supporting the other businesses in town by purchasing those gift cards.”
Zahara noted Athabasca has been selected to take part in the Rural Homelessness Estimation Project, one of 25 communities to do so.
“Athabasca participated in the project in 2018 but it's been five years since we've had an accurate estimation of what our homeless population looks like in Athabasca,” she said. “This estimation project is going to be incredibly vital.”
To coordinate gifts and donations, e-mail ACCHS at [email protected].
