KENORA – Mayor Dave Canfield signed a second declaration of Emergency for the City of Kenora as the emergency shelter prepares to close its doors this Friday at 8:00AM CDT.
The emergency shelter is currently funded through the Kenora District Services Board (KDSB), and the KDSB has been actively working with both the Nechee Friendship Centre (Nechee) and the Kenora Fellowship Centre (Fellowship Centre) administration on moving forward with a plan to keep the emergency shelter open at its current location. The KDSB has confirmed that, as part of this plan, sufficient funding had been identified to cover off costs related to running the emergency shelter at its current location through a partnership between Nechee and the Fellowship Centre for an additional two year period. The two year period would allow time to identify a new location, while ensuring that our community still had an operating emergency shelter. The City has been in regular discussions with the KDSB during this time.
While the proposed plan was approved by the Nechee Board, the Fellowship Centre Board determined that they were not willing to approve the proposed plan and still intended to close the emergency shelter as of July 1st at 8:00 a.m. The Fellowship Centre had previously indicated they would be closing their emergency shelter, and had already extended the date of the closure. The Fellowship Centre Board determined they were not willing to extend their shelter operations any further.
Although the KDSB actively continues to work on this issue, and to be in direct contact with Nechee administration on moving forward, and while an interim 3 month solution has been identified, no final solution is in place for the end of the summer.
Council is committed to the importance of an emergency shelter and working towards a resolution to this important issue in our community.
