Sscope to shutter after failing to secure down payment on Neechi Commons

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This article was published 27/01/2022 (1339 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After a long and ultimately unsuccessful journey to obtain funding for its housing initiative space, Sscope Inc. will close its doors Sunday.

The Winnipeg non-profit social service agency had set up in the former Neechi Commons at 865 Main St. in August 2020, and houses 46 people and keeps 40 emergency overnight spaces. It leased the building from Assiniboine Credit Union with the condition Sscope (Self-Starting Creative Opportunities for People in Employment) would take it over after a year.

The group was looking for $1 million to meet the down payment, but has been failed by every level of government, executive director Angela McCaughan said.

“As of Jan. 31, we don’t live here anymore. We will no longer be operating an emergency shelter, so anyone who’s in an emergency shelter, we will help you,” she said in an online video posted Wednesday.

“All three levels of government have decided that the people that we serve are not important, the people that we serve don’t have enough value for them to give us a measly amount of money for the down payment on this building so we can keep people safe.”

McCaughan declined an interview request Thursday with the Free Press.

Sscope is in the process of looking for a new space and “will not be abandoning anybody,” McCaughan said.

Excess food and thrift shop items will be given away, and the service plans to continue helping residents that had been looking for employment. Those who had been using its overnight space will need to find accommodation at other homeless shelters around the city, Sscope said in an online post.

“It was an extremely difficult conversation that I had to have with the people I care very much about — to let them know that although we value them as humans, that they’re important to us, they’re not that important to the powers that be,” McCaughan said.

Sscope applied for funding from the federal rapid housing initiative several times and was rejected each time, she said. The City of Winnipeg, which received $12.5 million through the program to hand out last year, approved five of the 33 applications it received.

“I just know that in two rounds of rapid housing initiative funding, there were millions of dollars (handed out). The recommendations from our public service and supported by council didn’t approve funding going to this particular organization,” Mayor Brian Bowman said Thursday.

“There are other organizations we’re supporting in our community. There is a limit to the amount of federal dollars as well as dollars from other levels of government.”

Bowman said the city had done its due diligence and End Homelessness Winnipeg had reached out to Sscope to help transfer residents to new spaces.

The Opposition was critical of what it called a lack of support from the province for Sscope.

“Sscope is an incredible organization for our community that has the potential to make a huge difference — if only they were properly supported by the PC government,” NDP critic for mental health and addictions Bernadette Smith (Point Douglas) said in a statement Thursday.

“In the long term, Sscope’s closure will put more strain on families struggling to find housing and employment. In the immediate, it will leave nearly 100 tenants without shelter.”

Just a day earlier, the province announced it would be providing funding, with the federal government, to support the expansion of Main Street Project to the tune of $1.5 million.

That money will go toward its new shelter space at the former Mitchell Fabrics building at 637 Main St., that opened in December 2020.

“The provision of safe, stable and affordable housing is a priority for me and for our government, and we have made several important commitments in recent months,” Minister of Families Rochelle Squires said in a Thursday evening statement.

“The province appreciates the support that Sscope has offered people experiencing homelessness.”

The province continues to support Sscope with operating funding through the Employment and Income Assistance program for each EIA client who resided at the former Neechi Commons building, while also providing “significant” funding for its employment program through the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, she said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca