Yellowknife’s “dark empty hole” a haven for the homeless

Colourful northern-themed artwork decorates many buildings in downtown Yellowknife, but the images they portray don’t reflect the hard life of many homeless people in the city. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Groups of people stand around April 20 outside near the Centre Square Mall. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

On a sunny April 20, the downtown area of Yellowknife is a favourite place for many to hang out on the sidewalks, parking lots and benches. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

YELLOWKNIFE — You don’t have to go out of your way to find homeless people in the capital of the Northwest Territories.

That’s because Yellowknife’s downtown core, which city councillors and developers call “a dark empty hole,” has become a haven for the homeless.

On April 20, when temperatures climbed to minus 5 C under sunny skies, many homeless people were hanging around the Yellowknife post office and in front of the Centre Square Mall on Franklin Avenue.

Dressed in a dirty black parka, Palluq, originally from Taloyoak, sat at the entrance to a downtown grocery store asking passersby for money.

Palluq, who did not want to give his last name or have his photo taken, said he’s lived homeless in Yellowknife, population about 20,000, for the past 10 years.

He sleeps outside — and, not surprisingly when the temperatures dip to minus 40 or below, his feet get cold at night.

When asked whether he ever returned to Taloyoak during that time, Palluq, who used to earn money as a soapstone carver, said “there’s nothing for me there.”

“No one wants those anymore,” he said.

Palluq clasped my hand, then made the sign of the cross as we said goodbye.

Like Palluq, some from Nunavut end up in Yellowknife after being released from jail — or due to mental illness, which makes them unwanted in their home communities, or as a result of their addictions, which draw them to the city.

Palluq is one of YK’s many chronically homeless people, defined as those without a home for six months or more. A recent survey found 139 homeless people in the city.

Nearly one in five homeless surveyed were Inuit, many from western Nunavut, most had lived in the city for more than 10 years, and, like Palluq, more than three in four had been homeless for more than 180 days.

According to a similar 2014 survey of homelessness in Nunavut’s three largest communities, the Government of Nunavut found fewer than 100 homeless Nunavummiut — a low number which many contested as being 10 times too low.

If that survey was accurate, this would mean there are only a handful of homeless, like in Cambridge Bay, where the GN plans to spend $470,000 in 2016-17 on a homeless shelter.

Some put the actual number of homeless closer to 400 in Yellowknife, where a one-bedroom rental apartment in the city centre costs $1,650 a month.

But whatever the precise number of homeless, the presence of many drunken and rowdy street people in downtown Yellowknife has created new security needs for businesses who want to keep them out. When you enter one large pharmacy, for example, you must first pass the scrutiny of a tall, burly security guard at the door.

However, those not allowed into the stores remain outside which deters some Yellowknifers from shopping downtown or going to the municipal library at the Centre Square Mall because they say they’re tired of being asked for money or seeing fights.

“There have always been people on the streets. But there weren’t the numbers we have now — they’re extremely visible,” said Gino Pin, an architect whose company designed several buildings in Cambridge Bay, including the Kiilinik school, the new Nunavut Arctic College residence and the hamlet office.

He’s spearheaded the “Homeful Partnership” group in Yellowknife, which hopes to put money and energy go into a “housing first concept” instead of a downtown redevelopment beautification plan, which is also on the table.

But that doesn’t solve the root problems of the downtown or homelessness, Pin said, citing Homeful Partnership’s motto: “homes for our homeless, a city safe for everyone and a healthy vibrant downtown core.”

With eight facilities for the homeless in Yellowknife, there is still not enough shelter for everyone, said Pin, who would like to see housing, perhaps with some form of supervision in place, built to take people off the city’s cold streets.

Once a person is safely housed, then their other needs, such as addictions, can be addressed, Pin said.

In the end, housing for the homeless is also a cost-saver, he said; the 2014 Mental Health Commission of Canada found that up to $9.60 of every $10 spent on housing is recuperated through less spending on other services.

But not everyone in Yellowknife agrees with Pin’s message of housing the homeless for “the humanity and dignity of homeless people themselves” — at least that’s the impression from an April 20 editorial, “Housing shouldn’t necessarily be first,” in the Yellowknifer newspaper, which states that “what is really at play is addictions, mostly involving alcohol.”

“In fact, many of those dubbed homeless in Yellowknife… are not even from the city. Some are here for days, weeks, months and years and while relatively stable in their home communities, fall to pieces after arriving in Yellowknife,” the editorial reads.

The Salvation Army shelter now takes “wet” clients, people who may be drunk, but that doesn’t appear to have stemmed the tide of homeless or the problems downtown, which also make extra work for local police.

“In Yellowknife, we have been in a cycle of arresting some people every 12 hours,” said Const. Elenore Sturko, media spokesperson for the RCMP’s “G” Division.

“They get released from custody and pick up where they left off — drinking, and causing a disturbance in the downtown area. Locking up intoxicated people does provide a service to those who want to use the downtown without running a gauntlet of drunk people, but does nothing to stop the cycle.”

To that end, Caroline Cochrane, the NWT minister responsible for addressing homelessness and a former CEO of the Yellowknife Women’s Society/Centre for Northern Families, has convened a roundtable discussion on homelessness April 26 and April 27 in Yellowknife.