(Safe Harbour website)

By Alessia Proietti

learning and helping

Safe Harbour hosts free customizable workshops for businesses and interested residents

Apr 14, 2024 | 10:15 AM

Safe Harbour is offering customizable workshops for businesses and interested individuals to learn about homelessness, addictions, and ways they can help.

The organization, currently running the temporary homeless shelter on Cannery Row along with many other services, began offering the workshops a few months ago to engage central Albertans in meaningful dialogue to gain understanding, resources, and techniques to navigate concerns.

The free, hour-long workshops are specialized depending on the specific interests and needs of participants, and can be done online, at the Safe Harbour office (5246 53 Ave.), or wherever guests would like.

Kath Hoffman, Executive Director of Safe Harbour, says they have already given nearly a dozen workshops, receiving positive feedback, and have more scheduled.

A popular workshop has been to local businesses who have faced adverse effects from people experiencing homelessness loitering on their properties. She says she wants to bridge the gap between Safe Harbour and the business community to focus on what can be done to make a change.

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“It looks to them [businesses] that things are just getting worse, so we want to try and be there as a connection for those businesses to try to help them; everything they’re gong through is real and recognizing that we can offer some support and there’s also things that they can do,” she said.

The workshops focus on how and when to approach people, who to call depending on the situation, and deciphering between an emergency and when their Social Diversion team can serve best.

“The businesses have had to tolerate a lot and we definitely appreciate that because everything that happens to them also happens to us [Safe Harbour]. We get vandalized and graffitied and our staff cars get vandalized. Nobody wants this to be happening and we know that there’s ways that we can help them and we’re trying to build that bridge, so we’re not seen as polar opposites. We aren’t polar opposites, and we know that to get anything to work, it’s going to take all of us,” she said.

Hoffman stated the consistent problem in the community is a need for proper housing. She believes Safe Harbor and the businesses can proactively advocate for this solution.

“We need to make those kinds of noises to all the right people. We do that together, we’re stronger, we got a better voice. That’s the intent; we have to work on those relationships because that’s how you get somewhere,” she said.

She noted that while housing will not fully eradicate vandalism and crime as there are other causes for these acts, it will help give people a place to be rather than at the shelter, hanging around the downtown core, or utilizing business bathrooms, making customers feel uncomfortable.

“People are housed, they got their own bathroom, they have their own places to use their drugs, they don’t have to be sneaking down an alleyway. It’s those things that will help and we also know through lots of good evidence and experience that when people get housed, things start to change for them. We know that’s the answer and that’s what we need to start working together towards,” she said.

Hoffman shared that other workshops directed towards interested residents have been for students at Red Deer Polytechnic’s nursing and social work programs, for employees at the Red Deer Public Library, and to a group of women at a home-based friendly gathering. She said people can learn how to look at addictions from a different lens, understand the deeper issues of homelessness, and where to offer resources to those in need.

Workshops can be booked online on their website.

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