Carmichael Outreach gets funds for warming centre; city restarts warming bus

The City of Regina, the Saskatchewan government and Carmichael Outreach are taking steps to give people experiencing homelessness a place to stay warm in the coming days.

In a media release Monday, the city said council had approved $100,000 in new funding to create a new warming space. The city said the Ministry of Social Services also is contributing a $200,000 grant, allowing the city to work with Carmichael Outreach to establish the new warming space.

The release said the funding will allow Carmichael Outreach to extend its hours overnight through the winter, and to operate an overnight warming centre with the capacity to hold between 50 and 80 people.

Carmichael Outreach hopes to have the space open by mid-January.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Tyler Gelsinger, Carmichael Outreach’s executive director, told reporters Monday. “It’s been a goal of Carmichael’s for about three years now, and now that we’re actually here, we’re pretty excited, given that the need has been there for some time.”

Last week, a group called on Carmichael Outreach to open a warming centre for homeless people in the city. The charity responded by saying it would take about $350,000 to get the program started, to help hire staff for the centre and to provide the necessary resources.

The city also announced Monday that it and the Downtown Regina Community Support Team will be putting a warming bus in front of Carmichael Outreach later this week, just in time for a significant drop in temperatures.

The city operated the warming bus in the winter of 2022-23 as well.

According to the release, the warming bus will be run until the indoor space is ready to take in people.

“The City of Regina is grateful to partner with the Province of Saskatchewan in supporting this additional warming space for our community,” Mayor Sandra Masters said in the release. “We are committed to continually improving access and services for residents during cold weather events.”

“We are pleased to assist in making this important initiative possible through a $200,000 grant from the province to support the City of Regina’s Cold Weather Strategy,” added Gene Makowsky, the province’s social services minister.

“Through this collaboration, more vulnerable people in Regina will have access this winter to supports needed to assist them on their path to achieving stability and stable housing.”

The city noted its Cold Weather Strategy allows the municipal government to work with existing services “to support situational awareness and co-ordinate efforts among human service sectors and community-based organizations to ensure that unsheltered individuals and other populations in vulnerable contexts have access to warming spaces and services during the winter months.”

People seeking information on warming spaces and services across the city can find it on the city’s website by searching “temporary shelter” or “warming spaces.”