THUNDER BAY -- The Shelter House and police agree it's too early to measure the impact of a suspended transportation program that caters to the city's homeless population but a meeting has been set with health officials over its future.
Shelter House executives will meet with the North West Local Health Integration Network in late April to discuss the prospect of long-term funding for its managed alcohol program and consider the future of the Street Outreach Service (SOS).
The SOS program, which provides health transports and outreach services to the south core homeless population ceased operations on April 1 due to a lack of funding.
"We're going to talk about SOS and managed alcohol at the same time," said Shelter House executive director, Gary Mack.
"It's a long process so what we're doing is re-introducing SOS into that conversation now. We'll see what's going to happen after that."
LHIN CEO Laura Kokocinski has stated her organization has other priorities in delivering local mental health and addictions services and the LHIN has received no funding request for the SOS program.
Shelter House launched an online fundraising campaign to restore SOS the day after staff made the announcement it would be suspended, promising to restore it as soon as the $200,000 needed could be raised.
The campaign has raised only $2,616 since March 15, although Mack said the Canada Helps site was only one way of recording donations.
"We can't really expect people just by their individual donations to fund this program," Mack conceded.
"We're also going after corporate donors, which is something we haven't pursued before quite so vigorously as we are right now. That's a process, too. We're looking for $50,000 a year from somebody for a four-year period and that takes relationship building."
According to Shelter House, the SOS program can transport its clients to hospital, detox and other health appointments for $53 per trip compared to a police or ambulance cost of around $200 for that same individual.
Both police and ambulance administrators have said they will feel SOS' loss but day-to-day data doesn't show an immediate impact of SOS' suspension on their services.
Mack agrees with Thunder Bay Police Service deputy chief Sylvie Hauth who said beyond the issue of cost, the SOS program constitutes appropriate care for those who live at Shelter House or use their services..
"What's most important to me is how our clients are treated," Mack said.
"Generally speaking, I think the officers and EMS are really fantastic with our people but they don't have the same relationship skills that our SOS team does. They (SOS staff) know the people on the street and they have really good relationships so when they show up at an incident, they diffuse things right off the bat."
