Clients don't have a warm place to warm up or access to washroom and laundry services. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

COVID concerns

Scattered Site reopens with limited services

Jan 20, 2021 | 5:00 PM

La Ronge’s Scattered Site Outreach Program reopened this week with a reduction in services.

That’s according to Kikinahk Friendship Centre Executive Director Ron Woytowich, who said clients are not allowed in the building due to coronavirus concerns. He explained staff will continue to provide breakfast and lunch, but that will be done outdoors.

“We don’t know how long this restriction will be in,” Woytowich said. “What has to happen is we will be providing food for them, but we have to prepare it and put it in a takeout container. That’s a problem that suddenly exists [because] all the restaurants in Canada suddenly are serving takeout instead of full service. It’s kind of hard to get takeout materials right now, but we are in the process of getting them.”

With clients not permitted to be in the building, Woytowich explained that means they won’t have a space to warm up or have access to washroom and laundry facilities.

With Scattered Site closed for two weeks, Woytowich noted one positive is the Extended Hours Program at Drifters Motel was unaffected. In previous years, the homeless shelter shared the same space as Scattered Site.

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“The people at the motel were not the ones who had to be isolated because of COVID,” he said. “That, if anything, is the luckiest thing that ever happened to us.”

Woytowich also wanted to once again thank the Lac La Ronge Indian Band for their $30,000 donation to Scattered Site. With the need to hire extra staff and costs associated with the coronavirus, he said the organization likely would have had to close without it.

“The cost of it is just crazy right now,” Woytowich said. “We are so lucky the band stepped up and gave us that money.”

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno