The Barry Hotel

The Barry Hotel is being demolished. In some ways I am not all that upset. It is old but not particularly well loved by the people of Saskatoon and is a well known flophouse. At the same time I struggle with it because when you live in a city with 0.6% vacancy rates, where do all of the residents who call it home (60 of them) go? Many are hard core addicts or have mental health problems and have been kicked out of every single care home in the city. Yeah the city may be better off with it gone but in 2 weeks, there will be 40 of Saskatoon's poorest who will be on the streets. Some have been there for 14 years and others are too socially challenged to be housed in group homes or shelter (violence, drug dealers). The cost of progress in this case does have a face and a name.

The crazy thing is that I spent the morning at a workshop sponsored by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation on affordable housing. According to the city, there are 5900 families at risk of homelessness because of rising cost of housing in Saskatoon. It feels like we are a little farther behind today.

Update: A few of you asked about the CMHC workshop. It was quite amazing. Faith based organizations from across the city were invited and it was well worth the time. I learned more about financing housing projects than I thought possible. I also walked away with some good ideas that occured to me about how to help some of our clients. One key thought was the difference between need and demand which is something that I need to keep in mind around here.