New women's supportive housing units double Sault's available beds

As 2023 came to a close, the local Social Services administration board approved a large increase in the number of supportive housing beds made available within the city.

The 10 new units being offered in a centrally-located building by the District of Sault Ste. Marie Social Services Administration Board (DSSAB) will add to the existing eight supportive housing units currently being offered for women at Pauline’s Place, more than doubling the number of such units in the city.

Although an all-new 44-bed shelter and supportive housing unit facility recently opened at the former Sacred Heart School on Wellington Street East, it is intended to be used by men. 

“We saw a need to add to what we have available for women,” said Luke Dufour, Ward 2 councillor and chair of the DSSAB. “We know women are more vulnerable in poorer, more isolated norther communities.”

For the project, the DSSAB took an existing building it owned and invested $100,000 to convert the common area into a communal kitchen and programming space.

The current residents of that building are being moved to another address at the cost of just over $28,500.

A DSSAB report on the project notes there is no impact on the municipal tax levy because it is being paid for from provincial Homelessness Prevention Program funding.

The new supportive housing units are intended to be used by high-acuity women who need more supports than what would be offered in a traditional shelter, said Dufour.

“This is for a person who needs someone there checking every day,” said Dufour. “These are people who are more successful where there is a controlled entrance and someone there saying no friends allowed.”

Operation of the new project will be overseen by the John Howard Society and will be staffed 24 hour a day, seven days a week. The DSSAB estimates three years of operational funding will cost $1,315,972. 

Dufour said the project adds to the DSSAB’s strategy to combat homelessness in the Sault.

“At a certain point you have to look past the shelter system and look toward permanent supportive housing. It’s the most expensive part of the system, it’s the most difficult to get built, but it’s the part of the system that actually gets people permanently moved out of homelessness,” he said. “If you’re just building shelters forever you’re not solving the problem.”

“Just because we have our shelter where they need to be now, if we are going to stay ahead of the next crisis we have to make sure we are starting to move people out of that system and supportive housing is the way to do that.”