The Warriors of Hope Community Support will be holding a traditional feast to honour a woman named Marjorie, whose death sparked a renewed conversation about the City’s homelessness crisis.
Just over one year ago, a woman named Marjorie passed away due to a drug overdose in Victoria Park.
Shylo Stevenson, executive director and communications officer for Warriors of Hope Community Support, recalls the day Marjorie passed.
“We were speaking at a rally at the Knox Church, and at the end of the event, we noticed someone in the park waving for help for someone in medical distress. Several of us went running and attempted life-saving efforts that went unsuccessful. That was sort of the beginning of Camp for us.”
After initially being named after her, Camp Hope, a tent city featuring close to 200 homeless people in the City, was set up soon after in Pepsi Park.
The Camp was taken down in November of last year after the City of Regina announced it would move many people living at Camp Hope to a 40-bed indoor emergency shelter.
Stevenson said that although Camp Hope is no more, plenty of people are still setting up tents around the Queen City.
“If you go for a drive in any of the alleys in North Central and the heritage area, Eastview, you will see the tents. There just not in one central location. There are many people that weren’t able to access the support and resources of everything offered. We went from 175 people to a 40-bed shelter, so there was a huge lack of services that were made available to the people.”
He said that the City of Regina’s homeless situation has become direr compared to last year.
“We are in a more dire time because we don’t have those wraparound supports, and we don’t have those agencies that are there here. I truly believe that there will be another one set up.”
Some of the lack of support include the All Nations Hope being unable to run there 24 house warming centre due to no funding from any government, and the shelter that the City opened received no continual funding.
“We built the puzzle, and then we just shook it back up and are waiting to rebuild it again,” he said. “Here we are one year last from the Camp, and we are not the further head. We are further behind, and we are going the wrong way.”
