04/24/2020
Here's a letter outlining the crying need for Provincial action for the homeless and barely-housed people in Saskatoon. Add your name to the petition.
Dear Friends,
I am writing, on behalf of the Church in Society Committee and Executive of St. Thomas Wesley United Church to ask for your help in getting more signatures on a petition requesting adequate shelter and supports for our community’s most vulnerable people. Because of our location on the corner of 20th Street and Avenue H South in Saskatoon, we have become acquainted with a number of people who do not have safe housing or secure food sources. They consider St. Thomas Wesley a safe place where they can warm up, have a friendly chat, a bite to eat and a cup of coffee. Many of these folks have survived horrendous abuse, including homelessness and most of them continue to have issues with substance abuse. We are so blessed to know them and to have their trust. This is why it pains us so much to see how their lives have become so much more difficult because of Covid-19.
In the Riversdale and Pleasant Hill areas of Saskatoon, many people live in unsafe rooming houses with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. Some people we know, do not even have this. When they are told to “Stay Home”, some might have that room in a house full of people, where there is no lock on the door to their room and they have both food and possessions stolen. For others home is the street. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many of the organizations that have provided emotional support and assistance are not meeting with people anymore so opportunities for checking in are not available for most. If the vulnerable people who live around our church become infected with COVID-19, there are not the supports in place to both remove them from the street and get adequate care and services for them. Who will know and who will care, and what impact will this have on the rest of the community?
Like, Peter Garden from The Stand Community Activist Centre and his friends, who wrote the attached petition, we “have been extremely frustrated with the lack of action by the Provincial Government to provide adequate shelter and supports for vulnerable people since the COVID-19 outbreak. Frontline agencies are reporting challenges with adequate funding and significant barriers to housing people so that they can socially-distance and isolate. Mayors and community leadership are united in their requests for more support from the Provincial Government. So far their pleas seem to be falling on deaf ears.”
We, at St. Thomas Wesley are choosing to add our voices to those of Peter and others to push the Provincial Government to take action. Please sign the petition, forward this email or write your own and share this link on social media https://www.change.org/p/premier-scott-moe-leave-no-one-behind-support-saskatchewan-s-most-vulnerable-during-covid-19. If you have direct contacts within the Government or within the Ministry of Social Services, please also use those contacts to push for action. We believe that many lives are at stake.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Elaine Findlay, Chair, Church in Society Committee
Nancy Scott, Chair, St. Thomas Wesley Executive and Congregation
Leave no one behind - support Saskatchewan's most vulnerable people during COVID-19
