The Kenora District Services Board says homelessness is a complex problem in Dryden as substance abuse, addictions and mental health illnesses have played a pivotal role in increased numbers of people without a home.
Chief Administrative Officer Henry Wall believes a coordinated community effort is now needed to begin work on building a homeless shelter.
“We are working closely with the hospital. It’s going to require addiction treatment programs that the hospital is involved with or probably we will need to expand it to ensure that the referral pathways function as one system.”
Wall stresses they need a system that ends homelessness and not just simply managing it.
“It can’t just be a shelter alone. We need to make sure that all the other supports are being developed in tandem with it. Because otherwise we will be the shelter by default that will become the addiction treatment centre and everything in it and that’s not what shelters do or should do.”
Wall notes “It’s easy to just acquire a building and set-up shop and say ‘this is a shelter’. If you don’t have the other supports that go with it, it could be quite disastrous.”
Wall says a study conducted two years ago identified some 67 individuals who were considered homeless in the City.
He notes many of those without a home in Dryden are young adults who are couch surfing.
Wall calls the numbers “alarming”, noting he only sees the problem getting worse.
