‘Everybody sees the truth’: Reform sought amid rising homelessness

‘Everybody sees the truth’: Reform sought amid rising homelessness

27 Oct, 2021

Speakers at a Wednesday morning rally called on the province to make changes to the SIS program and say they’re seeing increasing homelessness and evictions.

David Fineday survived the ’60s Scoop and has been fighting his entire life.

He squats — squatters lives in unoccupied buildings or unoccupied land — and doesn’t have a place to rent.

Fineday challenged religious organizations to open doors to their houses of worship when empty to let people in and challenged residents to each help someone who is homeless.

“Everybody sees what’s happening out there. Everybody sees the truth,” Fineday said at a rally in Saskatoon Wednesday.

Fineday told the crowd outside the Sturdy Stone building in downtown Saskatoon that he takes action even though he has an acquired brain injury that makes it difficult for him to think and speak. A similar rally was held at the Legislature in Regina ahead of Wednesday’s Throne Speech.

Many who did speak in Saskatoon Wednesday morning called for reform to the Saskatchewan Income Support (SIS) program as they’ve seen the number of people experiencing homelessness grow as winter approaches.

At the end of August, SIS fully replaced the existing Social Assistance Program and the Transitional Employment Allowance. Since then, front-line workers in community-based organizations say they’ve seen a marked rise in evictions and homelessness, as payments for rent and utilities no longer go directly to landlords and utility service providers, but to the applicants.

Quint Development Corporation, a non-profit organization that provides affordable housing and employment services, is seeing people failing to pay their rent. Quint’s housing program manager, Holly Lucas, said in an interview there are many reasons for this.