Mustard Seed to open sober shelter
By Tim Kalinowski on December 4, 2020.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com
Calgary-based The Mustard Seed will be opening a new 45-bed sober shelter service in Lethbridge starting this month, and is looking to open a permanent supportive-housing facility in the community sometime in 2021. The new shelter will be open 24/7 to serve the needs of the local homeless community.
“We are working with the community at large to secure two locations,” confirms Mustard Seed managing director Byron Bradley. “One would be for permanent supportive housing, and we are hoping that will open in 2021. That location is not 100 per cent confirmed at this point. And the second thing we are doing is we are hoping to open a sobering shelter as early as this month.
“So we have begun recruitment in town, and we are trying to secure a location. We had hoped it would have been done by now, but it has not yet been confirmed. We are working very hard with the community at trying to find a location that would work well.”
The sober shelter will do as its name suggests, Bradley says, and offer temporary shelter to those among the homeless population who are either not using drugs or currently in recovery. The idea, says Bradley, is these individuals, when they are ready, will eventually be transitioned into the Mustard Seed’s other permanent supportive housing facility when it is ready in 2021 and beyond.
“Being a mat on a floor doesn’t provide a person with a lot of hope,” he explains. “As we know, a shelter is not a home. It should just be a temporary place for a person. Our vision is to eliminate homelessness and reduce poverty where we serve, and so we want to try to get as many people off the street into a supportive-housing environment where they can feel they are part of the community again if they do not currently feel that way.”
The Mustard Seed, which has 36 years of service under its belt and operates in six cities, works closely with its compatriot Alpha House in Calgary, confirms Bradley. The sober shelter will provide additional capacity over and above what the current homeless shelter in Lethbridge offers, he says, and offer more options for those who wish to remain sober, or who do not use drugs or other intoxicating substances in the first place.
“It is very important to have both ends of the continuum covered; so if a person is actively using substances they have a safe and supportive place to go like Alpha House,” Bradley explains. “But also if they are looking for a place where they can be when they are sober, and they don’t want to be around folks that are using substances, they also have another, separate, distinct place to stay.”
For more information on the Mustard Seed visit theseed.ca.
Follow @TimKalHerald on Twitter
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We do not need another shelter here. The one we have in not running at full capacity!
If you are thinking about opening one downtown . . . forget it! We have been raped and pillaged enough and will not stand for it!
Downtown businesses have been devastated after the SCS was FORCED on us against our will and it this sitting Council thinks the downtown core will allow this, think again . . . there will be a move to remove you all from Council before the next election!
We do not need another shelter! We need effective treatment programs, a crown prosecutor that will give our police teeth to get these people off our streets and a city Council that stops selling out our city to 150 deviants the urinate, defecate, commit sexual acts, do their drugs/alcohol where ever they want on our downtown, with impunity! This has to end!
They are not allowed to do this on the streets of Standoff or Brocket, yet this Council gives them free reign on our streets, costing the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars!
We will not take this anymore! Mustard Seen is not needed and is not wanted!
By any chance, do you identify as Christian?
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Amazing! It appears IMO and Kal Itea may be council members! Blowing our hard earned tax dollars on the arts and reconstruction of downtown in areas over-run by the addicts that stay up all night wreaking havoc on our streets with few police stopping them!
Maybe we should make sure the shelters are built in their neighbourhoods and maybe move the mobile injection site there as well, rotating schedules of their neighbourhoods to share the great experience!
Keep up the fight ewingbt!
Houses just across the alley and 3 schools within just a few blocks. This has the potential to be a disaster! If they CAN somehow limit it to a true “sober shelter” with no criminals/drugs/alcohol around, then good for them.
Strange how these people spin their stories. Sobering center, watch how drug addicts fill the Ramada if this council is naive’ enough to believe the story. Then watch as Henderson Lake Pool becomes a disaster, then Henderson Lake area itself will become Needle Haven, then watch as the South McGrath Housing suddenly has numerous more bike chop shops as the neighborhood is invaded.
Do I trust this council to have a clue? Not one iota so we should make it an election issue!