New home for homeless dedicated to Faron Hall

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This article was published 17/08/2016 (3652 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two years after he died, Faron Hall — who rescued two young people from the Red River — is being honoured by a new home for the homeless in St. Boniface.

Morberg House, a new housing initiative located at 311 Provencher Blvd. and run by grassroots not-for-profit Street Links St. Boniface, will officially open its doors at 10 a.m. today. The home was bought with funds donated by Gail Morberg.

Marion Willis, head of Street Links St. Boniface, said the house is “like a vision manifested.”

“The homeless in St. Boniface have been largely, not an underserved population — they have been an un-served population,” Willis said.

Most social services are on the other side of the river, she said, and aren’t accessed by people in her neighbourhood. Willis said the project is an effort to fill the geographical gap but also to try an integrative approach that’s unique among Winnipeg services.

“We’re a little different than a lot of the other opportunities that are offered through the End Homelessness (Winnipeg) initiative in that we’re not a rooming house, we’re not offering apartments,” she said.

Three people already live in the house, with another three moving in next week. The building can house up to 12 people, expected to be a mix of permanent and temporary occupants.

The home will also offer what Willis calls “wraparound services,” which she said are sometimes neglected in the City of Winnipeg’s housing-first approach to homelessness.

Residents will work with Street Links and community professionals to create client-centred plans to address challenges such as addiction and mental-health issues.

While the house is alcohol-free, Willis said residents don’t have to be sober to live there.

“We’re low-barrier, we’re high-tolerance. We’re working with people where they’re at,” she said.

Above the threshold of the home hangs a stone plaque donated by Brunet Monuments in St. Boniface, reading “In memory of our homeless hero Faron Hall.” Willis said Hall was the catalyst for the Street Links organization, whose roots go back to May 2009, when Willis watched Hall pull a 19-year-old man out of the Red River after he fell off the Provencher Bridge.

After that day, Willis said she began to meet regularly with Hall to discuss the challenges facing St. Boniface’s homeless population, before Hall drowned in the Red River in August 2014.

“The Street Links organization and Morberg House and just about everything we do actually has been informed by Faron Hall and his friends,” Willis said. “I think you’ll find that the house and its programs will be quite successful because there’s a sense of ownership already and a great deal of pride by the homeless population, and (a sense) that, in fact, this is their place.”

Willis said she thinks Hall would be “very pleased” to see the house’s opening.

“It just kind of gives me shivers,” she said. “I think he probably can see from afar, and I sometimes wonder if there’s some outside force that’s guided all of this.”

By fluke, she said, the opening date of the house was scheduled for Aug. 17, the two-year anniversary of Hall’s death. The house, also by coincidence, formerly belonged to the Franciscan Sisters, who offered community services in the area and knew Hall as well.

“It’s all very moving, it’s very touching,” Willis said. “There’s something kind of sacred about this whole journey.”

aidan.geary@freepress.mb.ca