The Inuvik Homeless Shelter
The IIC (Inuvik Homeless Shelter) hosts its own web site, Resource Directory and Community Calendar. The Committee from time to time undertakes special projects that study or research particular topics that are of interest to the community and to the Beaufort-Delta Region within the mandate of the IIC.
The Most Northern Shelter in North America!
The Inuvik Homeless Shelter (IHS) is the only means of emergency shelter for single men and women in the Beaufort-Delta region. Homeless persons in Inuvik face exceptional challenges. The extreme living conditions of the Arctic include 8 months of winter with freezing temperatures and 30 days without sunlight. Some homeless persons also struggle with concurrent mental health issues and addictions. Without the Shelter these community members are put further at risk.
The Shelter continues to be highly utilized. During the 2010/11 year the Inuvik Homeless Shelter provided services to a total of 93 individuals. Many of these individuals were repeat clients throughout the entire year while some stayed only a few days. The majority of the 85 clients were First Nations (44 Inuvialuit, 33 Gwich’in and 12 ‘Others’). Data collected by the Inuvik Homeless Shelter over the past year indicates that client numbers and need for shelter services continues to grow.
We are currently running a soup kitchen program that provides three meals per day to the residents of the Shelter. This program feeds between sixteen and twenty individuals who stay at the Shelter each night and the cost of food in the Arctic is high, it costs approximately $3000.00 per month to run this Soup Kitchen program. This may seem excessive yet when the costs are broken down that is just $5.55 per person per day if there are eighteen individuals living in the Shelter.
However, this budget provides meals solely for the clients of the Homeless Shelter, however there are other homeless peoples living in the community who are not able to access meals as through personal choice or due to an alcohol or drug addiction they are not staying at the Shelter (due to small size the Shelter is not able to accommodate a ‘wet room’ facility for inebriated individuals). The Inuvik Interagency and Inuvik Homeless Shelter would like to be able to expand the current Soup Kitchen program to offer at least one meal per day to these homeless people as well, regardless of whether or not they are staying at the Shelter.
The Soup Kitchen is a significant and rewarding thing to offer to the homeless members of our community as it helps these individuals in their transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency as it teaches them how to cook and prepare well-balanced meals. After seeing staff preparing meals there have been a number of Shelter residents who have taken an interest in this process and have learned how to cook for themselves which is an important part of living on one’s own. Another reason why having a Soup Kitchen Program is so important is that rather than spending their day in search of food, the homeless individuals in our community are now able to focus on bettering themselves whether it be through going to school at Aurora College, participating in the Inuvik Works program which teaches responsible work ethic, or simply getting proper identification. The Inuvik Interagency and the Inuvik Homeless Shelter seek to serve the daily needs of the homeless members of our community by providing them with their right to adequate housing and by providing them with the opportunity to work constructively towards a new opportunities.
As the Homeless Shelter is a Charitable organization it is run solely on donations which means that it is crucial to the maintenance and stability of the Shelter that we receive these donations. Any help you can provide to the most northern Homeless Shelter in North America is greatly appreciated!
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