Vacancy rates in the N.W.T. capital are critically low, but future apartment projects alongside smaller, locally developed units, may offer a glimmer of hope.
The limited day-use shelter outside of the Aspen Apartments on 51st Street in Yellowknife opened at the start of June. By Wednesday, it had disappeared.
Temperatures were dropping into the minus-twenties. There was no time for hand-wringing.
On Nov. 6, Paulie Chinna declared a
state of emergency which allowed the government to convert the mine safety building into a day shelter. That state of emergency has been extended multiple times, most recently through Jan. 28.
But the executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says resorting to this option says as much about the state of the territory s laws as it does about the government s efforts to address homelessness. On the one hand, they are using the emergency power as a workaround force for an urgent necessity, namely, to protect the lives and health of the homeless, said Michael Bryant. On the other hand, a system requiring a workaround is almost by definition, unconstitutional.