ATHABASCA – Rural homelessness is a distinct challenge that needs distinctly rural solutions, and a recent national online symposium brought the people trying to find and implement those solutions together to share strategies with others trying to solve the issue in their own small communities.
The Canadian Rural and Remote Housing and Homelessness Symposium was held online June 1-3 and included two representatives from the newly-formed Athabasca Cares Community Housing Society (ACCHS), who will bring that knowledge back to the group as they take the first steps toward trying to eradicate homelessness in the region.
“Rural homelessness is a whole other ballgame in terms of getting adequate funding and getting the proper recognition from federal and provincial agencies,” said Krystal Zahara, who attended the symposium as a co-founder and a director of the ACCHS. “We know that homelessness is a huge issue in rural communities, so this symposium basically offered a lot of advice and support on dealing with those pressing issues that we face in these rural communities.”
One of those issues is employing a reliable method to count the unhoused in a specific area; another is defining what exactly homelessness is — first steps that will have to be taken as ACCHS progresses in its mandate over the next several years.
Zahara said she picked up a lot of useful points from those involved with Canada’s National Housing Strategy, who highlighted their approach of engaging the community, and using community members with similar lived experiences to collect the research needed on rural and remote housing. She said she was also impressed with a methodology developed by the Rural Development Network that does not rely on service agencies or large numbers of volunteers.
“They've used this strategy in over 40 communities across Canada, and they provided some really accurate data on estimating the rural homeless population,” she said. “So, we're hoping it's actually very comprehensive step-by-step process and methodology to apply these simple steps to get some accurate estimating done within our community.”
The Rural Development Network was also the organization behind a 2018 Rural Homelessness Estimation Project, which Athabasca County took part in with 19 other communities. The local survey had 22 respondents, 15 that considered their housing situation “unstable.”
“We know that, just by looking and being observant, that our population of homeless individuals has grown since then,” said Zahara.
“What is homelessness, right? What is it? Is it not having an actual home, or is it not having a place to sleep, or is it couch surfing? There are so many different ideas and there's so many different categories of homelessness. So, this guide really highlights all of those different categories, and it is a really accurate way of estimating homelessness on a different level.”
Overall, Zahara said attending the symposium was an invaluable experience, and the networking opportunities allowed her to make connections with others from rural areas across the country, and helped her realize the issue is not one that the Athabasca region faces alone.
That's just the start of what ACCHS hopes to accomplish in the region, but right now the group is focusing on the upcoming winter, and where the unhoused population will be able to rest their heads in the immediate future.
The temporary Mat program that was established last winter by the Athabasca Native Friendship Centre and was funded by a government grant that allowed it to operate for about 80 days, was just that — temporary — so there is no plan in place for when the weather turns again in the fall.
Zahara said it’s going to take a community effort, and so far, the individuals, groups and agencies that have joined ACCHS is promising, but right now, there is an urgent need to establish an emergency shelter program, but that is going to take not only the know-how, but the financial support as well, and that is the biggest challenge facing the group, and groups like it across the country, at the moment.
“First and foremost, we need to focus on preservation of life within our community and if we don't have any place for people to sleep this winter, we're going to be dealing with some really awful situations, so we need to do the survey, but we need to put that on the table for right now and deal with the urgent situation of establishing some sort of emergency shelter program,” she said.
“We need the community to come together and think about what we're going to do to get a program up and running, because we cannot have another situation in this town where we have people sleeping on the streets in minus 40 weather.”
If you’re interested in joining ACCHS or contributing ideas and/or finances to the group to help establish an emergency shelter in the community, reach out via e-mail to [email protected].
