New Siloam CEO takes charge amid growing need, tight budgets

Sonia Prevost-Derbecker says she’s stepping into her role as CEO of Siloam Mission with confidence, buoyed by what she describes as a deeply committed team that helps members of Winnipeg’s marginalized community.

She was chosen to lead the non-profit after a nationwide search that attracted more than 1,100 applicants, the organization announced Thursday.

She describes Siloam, one of the city’s largest homeless shelters, as a place that goes beyond meeting basic essentials, where the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs of clients are considered.

“It’s more than just housing and food distribution,” she told the Free Press on Thursday. “It recognizes the holistic approach needed to support the full human. I really love the fact that it connects both Christian values and traditional Indigenous values, and that it contributes to ending chronic homelessness and a real virtuous goal of providing housing for thousands of people. It’s contributing to a better Winnipeg.”

A longtime Winnipeg resident who raised her children in the city, Prevost-Derbecker brings extensive leadership experience.

She had been global director of Indigenous men’s mental health programs with Movember and has held senior roles with Indspire, the Point Douglas Revitalization Initiative, Ndinawemaaganag Endaawaad, All Nations Co-ordinated Response Child and Family Services and the Métis Child and Family Services Authority.

“We were seeking a leader who will honour our mission and values while guiding the organization through the next phase of its work to end chronic homelessness. Sonia brings the experience, relationships, and leadership approach to do just that,” board chair Tracey Silagy said in a news release.

Currently, homelessness is at record levels in Winnipeg.

In its most recent street census, End Homelessness Winnipeg counted 2,469 homeless people in a single day — a 97 per cent increase from the 1,256 counted over 24 hours in 2022, and the highest number since the initiative began in 2015. The organization has pegged the chronic homeless population at 917 people.

Prevost-Derbecker points to decades-old structural issues as root causes, including a drop in housing stock and responsibilities for subsidized and supportive housing.

“Eventually push comes to shove, all the housing stock that would have normally housed (people), and the services that would have normally supported (them) dry up or slow down. There’s spillage and overflow into larger systems (such as) hospitals. We find people riding buses and all kinds of ways to stay warm and healthy and alive.”

Environmental and economic pressures, along with changes to substance abuse, have compounded the crisis.

“It’s not like there is one single thing,” she said.

Julianne Aitken, Siloam’s director of services, served as interim CEO following the departure of Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud in January 2025. She left to become senior adviser on homelessness to Premier Wab Kinew and to lead the Your Way Home strategy. She took the helm at Siloam in late 2021, replacing Jim Bell, a former executive with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who resigned amid accusations the shelter was not meeting the spiritual needs of its Indigenous clients.

“All sectors are running into the difficulty of transition, particularly in the non-profit world,” Prevost-Derbecker said about Siloam’s revolving door.

“We’re lucky here because we have a really dynamic and competent and dedicated senior leadership team. It’s really about building capacity within organizations and in Siloam. The reality, though, is that there is dedication all over the place here.”

In terms of the province’s strategy to tackle the homeless problem, Prevost-Derbecker said she’s encouraged there’s a co-ordinated plan.

“I’m certainly glad that broader systems are being taken into consideration, and there’s integrated service delivery and a sort of collective impact approach,” she said.

Siloam is working toward building 1,000 housing units over the next decade, an ambitious goal she calls essential.

“There is a real critical, immediate need… We’re here to work in collaboration and do our piece… if there’s funding, if there’s will, if there’s education to bring about broader understandings, it’s way doable.”

At the same time, she must contend with shrinking donations as older, longtime donors are lost and younger people face financial strain.

“Donor dollars everywhere are drying up, economies are becoming tighter, both in households and in provinces and cities,” she said. “Federally, we are running into very difficult economic times, as we know.

“But really what is donation? Donation is donor dollars, it’s volunteers. It’s a recognition and an understanding… that we all live here, and this impacts all of us. So our contributions, whatever they are, need to be focused and recognize the good work and the wonderful people contributing in whatever way. The reality is, it won’t change unless we collectively change it.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca