Provincial money to help Regina Street Team steady and expand

The Regina Street Team got a lot of praise for the work it’s been doing, helping the most vulnerable in Regina’s core areas, and on Thursday, it also got a funding boost from the provincial government.

Social Service Minister Gene Makowsky was on hand in Regina’s Victoria Park to announce $325,000 in annualized funding to go to the program — $200,000 to finish out 2024, and $325,000 on the books for 2025.

“This group – with the meetings I have had and what I’ve seen – already operating and doing the kind of work that the ministry’s looking for, this seemed like a natural fit,” said Makowsky.

The team currently works in the downtown, Heritage and Cathedral neighbourhoods, helping people in the street with whatever they might need – it can range from helping them find food and water or shelter, to advocating for them with organizations like the Ministry of Social Services, or even helping with on-site first aid.

“I know for certain that there’s a lot of people that wouldn’t still be here if it wasn’t for the work that our team is doing,” said Jason Knudsen, with the street team, when asked how to explain the need for what the team does.

The team help meet the immediate needs of people, but Knudsen said is also affecting long-term, sustainable change.

“If we can help rebuild the system more effective for all of us, who knows what kind of cost savings and life savings that’ll be, it’ll be tremendous,” he said.

“It’s much needed and we can use all the help we can get.”

Mayor Sandra Masters echoed the sentiment, saying that the tangible numbers produced by the team about what it does, allow the city to go to the provincial government and explain where the gaps are and what could be done to fix things.

Masters praised the team and its work.

“It creates safety for the individuals that are experiencing these circumstances,” she said. “It creates more safety for the community in and around it.”

The mayor said there was a rise in fentanyl use during the pandemic, and that can have all kinds of ripple effects for a person and how they take care of their needs and others, so she said this team can help those people.

“Being able to connect those folks, to keep them safe in the interim until we have treatment beds open up or we have shelter space that they’re able to access or medical treatment,” Masters said.

Knudsen said the services the team provides are needed, and that need has been growing.

The money from the provincial government will be used to help expand the team’s services more into North Central and to retain its staff.

“We would have had a bit of a shortfall for next year and we would have been scrambling to keep the people that we have,” Knudsen explained.

“It’s a lot of work to recruit qualified personnel to do this kind of work, so we want to do everything we can to make sure we keep those folks, so this really gives them some piece of mind and it gives us some piece of mind, knowing that they’re still going to have a job next year.”

NDP MLA and social services critic Meara Conway was also at the announcement on Thursday.

In a statement later, she praised the work of the street team, but said it was developed in response to the need in the community that have been made worse by the Sask. Party’s “short-term thinking” on things like mental health and addictions, and housing.

Conway also pointed out that the government is coming out and doing this public announcement just three weeks ahead of the expected writ drop for a coming provincial election.