Siloam Mission gets $3M to increase capacity

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This article was published 13/08/2017 (2447 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Siloam Mission will soon jump from 110 beds for temporary shelter for the homeless to 160 beds, including 33 new separate and secure beds for women.

The Princess Street shelter received $2 million from the province Monday and $1 million from a joint federal-provincial affordable housing program fund to add 54,300 square feet.

“It will make room for the 20 to 40 people we turn away each night. We look forward with much excitement to breaking ground this fall,” Siloam CEO Jim Bell said at a news conference Monday.

The money will also allow Siloam’s dining room to serve more than 500 people three meals a day — compared to the current 400 to 450 at each meal — possibly as early as Thanksgiving, Bell said.

“These are tremendous assets,” Families Minister Scott Fielding said. “Everyone deserves access to a safe place to stay.”

Federal representative, Winnipeg Centre Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, praised the project at the news conference.

“None of us has a stone heart. We all have the right to sleep in a warm bed with a roof over our heads,” he said.

But a few minutes later, Oullette pointed out that while 50 temporary beds will be added, the province is also allowing 300 permanent housing units to be lost.

Fielding recently decided to sell 185 Smith St. rather than pay the $20 million to repair the 21-storey Manitoba Housing unit, closed since extensive damage from a water-main break two years ago.

The money brings Siloam’s Make Room $17-million capital fundraising campaign to $12.6 million. It will also provide a link between Siloam’s main building at 300 Princess St. and the adjacent building at 303 Stanley Ave. where most of the dining area is located.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca