THUNDER BAY – Shelter House's new managed alcohol site should come online by September, according to executive director Brendan Carlin.
“It's still under construction," he said of the new space at the corner of East Donald and Simpson Streets. "There was a changeover in leadership at the time, so we took a few months to get going. Once we got everything settled and our plans in place, contracts signed, all that. They're working on it right now.”
In April 2024, Paul Calandra, then the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, announced four projects would receive a total of $9.2 million from the District of Thunder Bay Social Services Administration Board (DSSAB) under the homelessness prevention program. Shelter House and NorWest Community Health Centres received $4.1 million to create a 17-unit managed alcohol program (MAP).
However, Carlin said the final result is a 16-bed facility, two of those are palliative care beds.
The managed alcohol program is for people affected by severe alcoholism and facing homelessness.
Carlin said a lot of the people entering the program are drinking “non-palatable” substances containing alcohol, like hand sanitizer and mouthwash.
“What we do is we provide a little bit of alcohol every few hours," he said. "At least they're drinking less non-palatable substances — also so they can keep a steady level so they don't go into withdrawals."
"It's very dangerous for these folks to just quit cold turkey. The goal is that the clients can level out their consumption, have safer consumption, because they're not drinking those non-palatable beverages,” Carlin continued.
“They're all at different points in their journeys. For some, the goal might be sobriety. For others, we've had people get housing, and they're able to function in their housing without binge drinking.”
Currently, the program operates out of the building next to Shelter House on George Street. There are 15 beds that are more like dorm rooms with up to five people sharing a room. In the new space, each individual will have a private room.
“It'll be private rooms, but they're very small," Carlin said. "The palliative rooms are a bit bigger, they're a bit more like a hospital room where somebody could come and sit with them or they can maybe have a couple family members come in."
"Not a lot of visitors, but somebody with them, as they go through, potentially, difficult times or end-of-life for that matter,” he said.
Carlin also said the new building will be more accessible and will have more room for programming, including life-skill workshops, exercise classes and cooking classes.
NorWest Community Health Centres will also be operating a clinic for those clients to have easy access to medical services.
Carlin also said the building the program currently operates out of will be converted into additional shelter space — possibly transitional housing.
He said some of the clients entering the managed alcohol program were first brought to Shelter House through their street outreach service, or SOS, which officially relaunched in early July.
“They were on the streets, sleeping rough, and built a relationship with some of those staff and were brought to Shelter (House) and through Shelter, they were eventually referred to that program,” Carlin said.
