'There's a need for this program': Matawa seeks funding to continue street outreach in Thunder Bay

The WiiChiiHehWayWin street outreach initiative, formed by Matawa First Nations during a series of cascading crises for the vulnerable population in Thunder Bay, Ont., likely saved lives according to the program's navigator.

But afterfunding expired on March 31, the program is on hold, while the tribal council seeks a wayto extend the initiative until at least the end of September.

"There's a need for this program. Homelessness is not a new issue, but I think there are more impacts felt because we're in a pandemic," said Leesa Davey, the navigator for the WiiChiiHehWayWin program.

Between Feb. 2 and Mar. 31, the program had 232 interactions, including helping families search for loved ones reported missing, connecting people living with homelessness with a warm place to stay, and handing out essential items like food, warm clothes, sanitary products and personal protective equipment, Davey said.

Davey said the program also likely saved lives, as outreach workers intervened a number of times after finding unconscious or unresponsive people who were lying outside in the streets during a bitter cold snap.

"People just out in the back alley in the freezing weather, like they would have froze probably in those cases," she said.

Street outreach began as temperatures plunged

Paul Capon, a political advisory with Matawa First Nations, said WiiChiiHehWayWin was created amidst concerns about the over-representation of Indigenous people living with homelessness as well as addictions, and fears of more deaths in the city streets.

On January 22, the body of Arnold Sakanee, a 29-year-old man from Neskantaga First Nation, was found frozen outside the Thunder Bay Museum.

He was one of several people living with homelessness who died in a period of a month, according to reports from the Thunder Bay street patrol group Wiindo Debwe Mosewin.

With temperatures plunging to below minus 30, a static bed list imposed on emergency shelters, and growing cases of COVID-19 within the vulnerable population, the Matawa Chiefs Council made a street outreach program their priority, said Capon.

Need for outreach program still exists: Matawa

A grant of nearly $100,000 allowed the program to operate with a navigator and two teams of two outreach staff working 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Capon said after the temporary funding ran out on March 31, new funding applications have been made to the Thunder Bay District Social Services Administration Board, Indigenous Services Canada, and soonto the Nishnawbe Aski Nation as well.

Davey said she hopes the funding comes through.

"Right now, like we have the stay-at-home order, but where do homeless people go? They don't have a home to go to, so there is definitely a gap."