'For them to have hope': Regina's emergency shelter set to open its doors
Regina’s new emergency shelter is set to open its doors.
The Gathering Place’s New Beginnings Centre is located in the former YMCA building downtown. Already, the 40 beds are fully booked with a waiting list.
It has been a tough winter for Regina’s unhoused. Jennifer Inkster slept in bank ATM lobbies until arrested.
“I was just trying to find somewhere warm to sleep,” she said.
Others slept on the steps of an abandoned house or were put up in a hotel by social services.
Now, there’s a better option.
Regina's new emergency shelter, in the old YMCA building downtown, is set to open its doors. (Gareth Dillistone / CTV News)
“A place for them to do whatever they would like to do,” said Erica Beaudin of Regina Treaty Status Indian Services.
Everyone gets a pod with a table, a bed, and three meals a day.
“Their private space,” Beaudin said.
It took the city until halfway through the winter to get a shelter going. Willing partners and cost were the barriers.
“To go in and actually have a facility like this that’s ready to go for human occupancy to stay 24/7, there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Mayor Sandra Masters.
It will cost just short of $1 million to house and feed 40 individuals for the remainder of the winter. The fully booked facility opens Monday and is designed to feel like home.
“[It’s meant to] give opportunity for them to remember that feeling, for them to want that feeling and for them to have hope that they can have that feeling again,” Beaudin said.
The City of Regina doesn’t want to get caught again next winter without an emergency shelter ready to go. It’s negotiating with the federal and provincial governments for funding for a facility that will be permanent.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report. Of the 15 most polluted cities in the two countries, 14 were in Canada.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
BREAKING Roy McMurtry, former Ontario attorney general, dies at 91
CTV News has confirmed that former Ontario attorney general Roy McMurtry has died.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.