The Castlegar and District Community Services Society is looking at developing a new initiative to help employ the homeless or those who have trouble finding work. The Way Out goes further than offering “money and one-off services,” the Society says, which is needed to truly make a difference. Hugh McGillivray is the coordinator for Community Services’s Homeless Partnership Program and says he hears from those who want work, but don’t always know where to start.
“I know some of the people that have come into my office have been very interested in doing anything, but they don’t have the means or a way to approach people. Even if they wanted to shovel snow or do some landscaping or something like that, just to get enough money to get by.”
Employment opportunities that the program could provide training in are trail maintenance, roadside cleanup, recycling, landscaping or forest interfacing preparation/cleanup. McGillivray says they’ve applied for a number of grants to help purchase equipment and supplies and should know in the next little while whether they’ve been successful.
McGillivray explains where he got the idea from.
“I took this idea from a project that I saw on the news about a program in Fortworth, Texas where they’re doing something similar like this.” There’s also a program in Winnipeg, he adds. The Way Out is designed differently than those ones, however. Other initiatives can be focused on one type of job or industry, where The Way Out looks at a variety of employment opportunities to suit different individuals.
The hope is to be able to bid on City or Regional District contracts and McGillivray was in council chambers on Monday to inform them of the idea. Doing jobs for private residences is also part of the plan. The initiative would be mindful of people who are already working and would not intend to remove jobs from anyone, but provide a vulnerable population with gainful employment and a fair wage.
