Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to draw attention to the growing population experiencing homelessness in Yellowknife and the nonprofit emergency shelters whose capacity is being completely overwhelmed. The last time the city of Yellowknife did a pointintime count in 2021, it was estimated that at least 312 people were experiencing homelessness in Yellowknife, the vast majority of whom are Indigenous, and 99 people at that time were staying regularly in emergency shelters. But the numbers have gone up a lot more since then.
The stress of COVID lockdowns resulted in more violence in many homes. Since then many more women and youth, in particular, have been seeking emergency shelter. The series of evacuations last summer caused most of our territory to be displaced from their home communities, and many ended up on the streets of Yellowknife. Some of those who were evacuated from Yellowknife returned from southern provinces with some new friends in tow.
Recently, I met with the Salvation Army which is within the Yellowknife North riding. It provides an emergency men's shelter every night with 31 sleeping spaces. It also operates the Bailey House, which is a 32 bed men's transitional housing facility, including four private rooms reserved for those coming out of jail. Now, normally as the weather gets warmer and sleeping rough becomes more of an option, numbers in emergency shelter would start to dwindle, but the Salvation Army is currently at over double its capacity every single night. They are trying to pack over 60 people into cramped rooms with mats laid out on the floor. They are working with people under the influence of harder drugs who are more severely intoxicated than they've seen before. Predictably, this results in more violence amongst shelter users and against staff. Many of the longer-term shelter users are now terrified to be there in the same cramped space as a younger and tougher crowd, but they have nowhere else to go. The RCMP and the ambulance are being called multiple times each night and this, of course, does not really solve anything. In this kind of an environment, you can't even offer people basic safety, let alone counselling or medical treatment, or pathways to a different life. Mr. Speaker, I'm worried our shelter system in Yellowknife will collapse if we don't urgently find better solutions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Members' statements. Member from Range Lake.
