$690k going towards expanding mobile income assistance outreach

Whether someone is in need of a cup of coffee or financial help, the Queen City Wellness Pharmacy works to address all of these problems.

It’s one of 26 places in Saskatchewan that is partnered with the Ministry of Social Services – which means it’ll benefit from the province investing $690,000 in the 2024-25 budget to expand the Income Assistance Mobile Outreach Services initiative.

The initiative puts ministry workers into community-based organizations such as the Wellness Pharmacy to support clients with complex challenges.

The province is placing an additional 10 workers into “select community based-organizations”.

Sarah Kozusko, store manager of Queen City Wellness Pharmacy, said the goal of the project is to meet people where they’re at.

“You can always still go through the traditional routes but the benefit of being here is nobody has to search – when they need it, it’s already here,” Kozusko said at a media event on Friday.

She said the program has been going on for about three months and has been very successful. Kozusko did not have the numbers offhand but estimated the pharmacy has addressed questions raised by at least hundreds of people.

Kozusko also said the pharmacy often engages other community organizations like the Friendship Centre or the Regina Street Team.

Social services minister Gene Makowsky said the idea for the program’s expansion came from consultation with organizations such as Wellness Pharmacy.

“The ability to expand the reach right throughout the community I think is an important thing … and I’ve heard from people that it’s a challenge going into a government office frankly …it might be (because of) a previous challenge or experience or the stigma of doing that,” Makowsky said.

He said there’s been positive feedback from clients and workers.

The ministry workers help clients take in-person applications for new clients, do surface-level screenings and help connect them to other programs and agencies. The workers also help clients find housing.

“Everybody’s situation is different. They may have different challenges and whatever it may be, we want to have the most options to help people with that initial pathway into getting help and it could be right here at the Wellness Pharmacy for a bunch of different people,” he said.

Kozusko said Queen City Wellness Pharmacy aims to provide a comforting space to people looking for help as it serves some of the most vulnerable people in the city.

“You use words like ‘you need ID for this’ and all of a sudden that’s overwhelming because – ‘how do I get that? What do I do? It’s probably going to get stolen’ – all these things that will go through somebody’s mind,” she said.

Kozusko says Wellness Pharmacy does everything from providing coffee in the morning and serving meals to helping people with diabetes and substance dependencies.

“We look at pharmacy very much from the basis of like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs where I’m not going to get anywhere with somebody with regards to their health if they don’t have safety and physiological comfort and shelter,” Kozusko said.

She added that Wellness Pharmacy serves 1,000 cups of coffee per month and 100 meals a day.

Kozusko said housing is of major importance.

“I think that until we have proper housing – it’s darn near impossible to ask somebody to work on their sobriety or work on their health, or work on anything else,” she said.

“If you’re using a substance to stay awake or to sleep during the day because of safety reasons, it’s pretty hard to ask somebody to stop that when they feel like they need to do it to numb out their lives. So until we have proper housing, it won’t work.”