’Helps change lives’: Downtown hub for Indigenous gets $21M

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This article was published 02/07/2024 (641 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A downtown-area hub that provides programs and services to Indigenous people in a heritage railway station is undergoing major structural upgrades with $21 million in federal funding.

It is the largest single funding amount the non-profit Neeginan Centre has received since it opened in the Canadian Pacific station — a national historic site — at Higgins Avenue and Main Street in 1992, said board member Kevin Chief.

“To get this investment to a place where we can fix things like the infrastructure, the roof and the windows to make them more efficient, and still maintain the historical standard of it, is important,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. “It’s also really important that if you want people to feel good about where they live, if you want people to feel safe where they live, then the infrastructure of the community has to look good. It has to be something that we can collectively be proud of.”

The century-old building in South Point Douglas will also undergo upgrades to its lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems.

Winnipeg Liberal MP Dan Vandal, minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada, said the funding is intended to improve the building’s energy efficiency.

The project is also meant to improve safety and accessibility for visitors.

The funds are being provided through Ottawa’s green and inclusive community buildings program.

Officials said the upgrades are expected the cut the building’s energy consumption by almost 30 per cent and its greenhouse gas emissions by 225 tonnes annually.

Some of the work to the roof and other parts of the building is underway.

The project should be completed by 2027, said Marileen Bartlett, executive director of Neeginan Centre, which was previously known as the Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg.

Neeginan Centre’s key programs and services include health and wellness, employment and training, and two child-care centres. The centre aims to remove barriers for Indigenous people.

A COVID-19 vaccine clinic operated out of the centre during the pandemic. It is also home to the Canadian Plains Gallery, which features works by Indigenous artists.

Chief said the hub is one of hope and activity in one of the lowest income urban postal codes in Canada.

“It helps change lives,” he said. “It continues to drive hope and optimism.”

The Beaux-Arts building was constructed between 1904 and 1906, and expanded the following decade. It stopped operating as a railway station in 1978.

Chief said Higgins and Main was a place of despair, and the former station was in rough shape when the Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg opened.

“It was an incredible vision and it almost seemed impossible at that time,” the former NDP MLA said. “It was just a different time 30 years ago. It was harder to get investment to invest in the Indigenous community. We’ve advanced a long way in 30 years.”

Chief and Vandal recalled the days they accessed programs or services at the centre when they were younger.

“It is still giving hope to thousands of young people who are coming here looking for a better life,” said Vandal.

Chief said he got his first job at Neeginan Centre.

People who have been trained in building trades at the centre will be among those working on the project.

“That has always been the way,” said Chief. “That the people who came through training programs, who got their certification, those same people get to come back and work in the facility, and we’ll continue to do that. That’s why you get this collective pride and being able to give back to your community.”

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca