As an advocate for making sure everyone has a warm place to go during the winter months, Mayor Clive Tolley will be watching closely what other municipalities are doing to end homelessness in their communities. 

While there are several organizations and individuals in Moose Jaw that do their best to offer supports such as warming centres, food and temporary shelter, there are still people in the community falling through the cracks.  

Last week, the City of Regina passed a motion to budget $5.5 million for a housing-first model to work towards ending homelessness. This isn’t the first time a municipality has moved forward with such an initiative.  

In 2015, the City of Medicine Hat adopted a housing first philosophy, where instead of addressing issues that contribute to homelessness, such as mental health and addictions, priority is put on finding housing with supports in place first. The philosophy is that once housed, it is easier to access supports for those factors that contribute to homelessness. 

Using this philosophy, Medicine Hat was able to achieve what is known as “zero functional chronic homelessness.” This means the city achieved three or fewer people experiencing chronic homelessness for at least three consecutive months. 

One of the barriers to finding housing is the affordability of finding a place to live. Tolley said affordable housing would have to be a partnership between the province and the municipality. 

“Most people that are facing income security problems should be going to Saskatchewan Social Services and making an application and get the support they need to get housing,” he said. 

Tolley said he’s willing to look at what other municipalities like Medicine Hat and Regina have done so that no one is left out in the cold come wintertime. 

“Certainly, if they're doing something somewhere else that makes more sense than what we're doing, we'll see if we can adapt and change and learn from their experience,” Tolley said.