A look inside Yellowknife's new day shelter

Yellowknife's new day shelter opened this week.

The facility, located on 49Street at the old Northern Frontier Visitors Centre, operates from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Members of Yellowknife's homeless population can do laundry, shower, socialize and grab three meals a day plus snacks.

Tracey Pope, manager for shelter coordination with the territory's health and social services authority, said the shelter has "exceeded [her] expectations" in its first week.

Pope helped run last year's SideDoor shelter. She said services at the new location are similar. Shelter clients can access medical carefrom doctors and nursesat select times, shelter staff canhelp facilitateclients' case management and counsellorswill soon be accessible too.

Six staff members operate the facility at a time five plus a supervisor. Having staff who worked at the previous SideDoor location also helps build trust with clients using the shelter, Pope said.

She explained that the facility is divided into two spaces.Clients can eat, do laundry andshower in the shelter's main room while in a separate quiet room, they cannap, read and watch TV.

Feedback from clients, Pope said, "has been overwhelmingly positive."

"They like the location, they love the setup, we heard from them from prior engagement that they want a free flow environment," she said.

Pope added they're still working to set up but there will soon be art workshops with Michael Fatt. Work from those sessions will later adorn shelter walls.

The facility can house 45 people at a time in retrofits of modular structures from the Tcho All Season Road construction camp.

The day shelter's opening follows a debate between the territory and city on whether to turn the former Aurora Village building into a day shelter.

City Council voted down that option and the territorial government enacted a state of emergency to bypass the City of Yellowknife's permit application process and provide a space for the homeless population as winter sets in.

TheYellowknife Community Arena was serving as a temporary day shelter before the new downtown location opened this week.

Theterritorial governmentestimates the new shelter has cost about $250,000 to set up, and will cost $175,000 per month to operate.

The 49Street facility will operate as the shelter until 2024 when the permanent wellness and recovery centre downtown is scheduled to open.