Skip to content

Living Space creating six new jobs

Soft opening next week
2017-10-31 LivingSpace MH
Renovations at Living Space, located at 27 Cedar St. N., started in October. Maija Hoggett/Timmins Today

From hiring staff to a soft opening, work is progressing at Living Space.

The facility, located in the old Hobo Motel at 27 Cedar St. N., is dedicated to ending chronic homelessness.

Renovations on the building that will house a 15-bed warming centre, service hub and transitional apartments started in October.  

KayLee Morissette, the regional co-ordinator for the Cochrane District Social Planning Council, gave an update of the progress at the centre at the Timmins Chamber of Commerce members quarterly meeting.

When work started at the space, the goal was to have it open this month.

Morissette said there will be a soft launch Dec. 22 to serve soup and bread for people living on the street.

Initially there will be six staff at Living Space.  

A full-time co-ordinator has been hired, and Morissette said they are in the process of hiring five full-time and part-time residential support workers. She said the federal and provincial governments have provided funding for the positions.

Once it’s open, the main floor of the building will be a service hub where clients will be able to access different workshops.

“When we’re talking about people coming off the street we recognize that a lot of people may not have the skills necessary to budget, or they might not have the skills necessary to cook a meal for themselves or plan that out,” she said.

Through community partners such as Employment Options or the Anti-Hunger Coalition, Morissette said they are hoping to teach people how to build a resume, or stretch grocery money to last longer.

The last study done on homelessness in Timmins was in 2011.

Laurentian University conducted it and found that there were 720 chronically homeless people in the city at the time.

Morissette said there is a longer-term strategy being developed to look at homelessness and poverty.

“The government’s going to be requiring an enumeration study to be completed, which counts the number of homeless people who are in a given community and also looks at the demographics and asks questions such as why they feel they are homeless and what types of situations they are living in,” she said.

Because the government didn't enforce the regular studies in the past, she said people didn’t understand the scope of the problem.

“We have been, as communities, a little slow to respond, but now that we are starting to understand what homelessness looks like we are putting plans in place to address the issues and not just respond to them. So a response would be opening up a shelter, that’s not tackling the reasons why people are actually homeless,” she said.