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'It’s been a long time coming': Housing units available for former Camp Hope residents

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The provincial government is making several of its vacant rental housing units for supportive living available for 24 former Camp Hope residents who spent the winter in a temporary shelter.

“We have several vacancies within the Housing Authority and we have a clear problem that we need to be solving so we just repurposed these units, put some special rules in place to allow these individuals to be roommates for lack of a better term and get those wraparound services that they need,” said Minister of Social Services, Lori Carr.

About 300 people came and went from a temporary shelter in the warehouse district, which is now closing. Many have found homes since. Two dozen people facing the biggest hurdles to housing are moving into government units, with supports, at undisclosed locations.

“Hopefully we have kept them alive to some point in time because they were able to be stabilized and have a place to stay at night and you know some food, we have had addiction services,” said Erica Braudin of Regina Treaty Status Indian Services.

Last fall, over 100 houseless people lived in tents in Pepsi Park until shelter was found. Camp Hope organizers commend the work that has been done since.

“It’s great that RTSIS stepped up and is taking the lead in it and it’s been a long time coming. We’re a bit further ahead than we were last year but we still have a long way to go,” said Shylo Stevenson of Warriors of Hope.

The partners in this housing initiative will try it out for one year and assess how it works. The government owns hundreds of vacant housing units across provinces and if the Regina pilot is successful, more could be converted to accommodate the houseless.

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