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This article was published 31/3/2018 (906 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Main Street Project has been lobbying the federal government to help launch an innovative shelter for Winnipeg’s chronically homeless and addicted, including Manitoba’s first supervised injection site, the Free Press has learned.

The shelter, which would occupy the Mitchell Fabrics building at Main Street and Logan Avenue, is in its preliminary steps. Rick Lees, the agency’s executive director, said it could change the way Winnipeggers — and Canadians — think about homeless shelters.

Lees said his goal is "making shelter not just about sleeping and being crammed into a space, but being able to offer supports so that people aren’t out all day searching for alcohol, or searching for their drug of choice or finding themselves in the back of a police car or the back of an ambulance."

The Main Street project is the city’s only "low-barrier shelter," Lees said, meaning it welcomes people who have been drinking or are on drugs, while other shelters only allow people who are sober. He hopes to end "constant tension" downtown by getting the most vulnerable out of malls and off the sidewalks in order to treat the issues that have them turn to the street.

Lees said the $6.5-million proposal has been in the works for two years. The new shelter could open by the fall of 2019 if things go according to plan.

The idea came about when the agency did its long-term planning two years ago, identifying its biggest challenges: high-need adults growing out of child welfare, a rise in crystal meth and, most of all, cramped quarters.

The current shelter crams 85 people into its 2,100-square-feet building almost every night.

"To accommodate 85 people, we have them on mats on the floor, side by side by side, with all of their worldly possessions. It’s an unsafe environment; it’s not a healthy environment and it doesn’t really meet, in my view, the standards a society should set for itself."

Around the corner at the Mitchell Fabrics site, the proposal would see 120 beds for recovering drug addicts and homeless people undergoing medical procedures. The building is roughly 36,000 square feet, or 17 times larger than the current shelter. It would include a cafeteria and facilities for counselling.

Lees said the project would target people with nowhere to go. Many "homeless" people in Winnipeg are couch-surfing with relatives or living in squalid, short-term rentals. But Lees said a minority spend their days loitering in public spaces with nowhere to go, even if they’ve just been discharged from hospital with an intravenous bag or antibiotics.

An "acute respite-care facility" would welcome people who take up hospital beds they don’t need, or end up on the street where they often contract infections because they can’t follow doctors’ instructions.

Supplied An artist’s rendering of the proposed Main Street Project shelter, which would be 17 times larger than the current one.

Most ambitiously, the proposal includes Manitoba’s first program that would provide alcohol and supervised injection to people with addictions.

In the past, Lees has talked about a possible managed-alcohol program for chronic alcoholics, which exists at shelters across Ontario and in Edmonton. The "wet shelter" concept would provide 34 beds to binge drinkers who would be provided food, housing and booze under close surveillance.

With the help of counselling, the hope is to wean those off alcohol who can get sober, while helping others avoid ingesting hand sanitizer or cold medicine.

Lees told the Free Press he’d also like to have the province’s first supervised-injection site, something that would require the Pallister government’s approval and a special federal permit.

Lees realizes such as program is controversial, but he said it’s the best approach to fixing complex social issues that persist downtown.

"Meth is not something you deal with just overnight," he said.

"Maybe we don’t need a provincial strategy, but certainly we need certain spots where safe-consumption is available, and Main Street Project should be one of those spots."

Lees said there’s been an estimated three-fold rise in needle use from 500,000 syringes two years ago, and more could be done than the current practice of distributing clean needles to people living on the street.

Manitoba has so far resisted supervised-injection sites, which have caught on in Canada’s three-largest cities as well as Alberta.

Main Street Project sits in the riding of Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette, who encouraged Lees to visit Ottawa so federal bureaucrats get a sense of the potential offered by the Mitchell Fabrics proposal. Main Street Project commissioned architects with Stantec to create detailed drawings and a cost estimate, pegging the project around $6.5 million.

Lees met with Winnipeg MPs the week of March 22, as well as Toronto MP Adam Vaughan, who handles housing issues for Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.

Duclos’ office confirmed it would start announcing program funding under the national housing strategy in April, and that projects across the country will be assessed for both new programs and existing funds and grants.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Rick Lees, executive director of the Main Street Project, says the new shelter would target people who have no other place to go.

"These will be assessed objectively on their merits and in line with program eligibility criteria," wrote Émilie Gauduchon-Campbell.

Lees said he made the case to Ottawa that the project could reduce costs incurred by hospitals, police and courts, by helping homeless people get their life back on track. He’ll make the same pitch shortly to provincial ministers, who handle budgets for those programs.

"The bang for its buck is pretty significant," Lees argued.

Ouellette said Main Street Project is one of the few places that can steer people sniffing gasoline and using meth toward a more stable life, but it currently has just a few showers.

"It is one of the most cramped places I have ever been in," he said.

Another Winnipeg Liberal MP, MaryAnn Mihychuk, said the expansion could fit into efforts at reconciliation with Indigenous people, which Lees said make up 60 per cent of the shelter’s clientele.

"There’s such great need, but it’s also a great opportunity," Mihychuk said.

St. Boniface MP Dan Vandal agreed. "The expansion that they’re planning is a positive for the city and I’m certainly supporting it."

Lees praised the Mitchell family for their help with the project. The family declined to be interviewed, but confirmed "confidential discussions" have taken place. "Negotiations on an agreement are still ongoing and it would be inappropriate for us to comment," Paula Mitchell wrote in an email.

In any case, Lees said "a centre of excellence" could become a landmark in Winnipeg, espousing values that society cares for its most vulnerable.

"We tell guests to our city to look the other way, because this is the bad end of town," he said.

"Why wouldn’t you want to treat your new homeless facility the same way you would treat a new hospital building or a new university wing, and build something that’s remarkable, and that you can be proud of?"

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca