As needs increase, pressure intensifies on both the system and the people falling through the cracks, says Regina Street Team director Robert Kraushaar.
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When asked how people in Regina are doing, Robert Kraushaar answers with a gusty sigh: “not well.”
As director of a community group that provides daily downtown foot patrols to help people with non-emergent needs, Kraushaar says there’s no question that the need for such support in Regina is growing.
“Unequivocally yes,” he said Thursday at a provincial funding announcement for the Regina Street Team, which was launched in 2020.
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As needs increase, Kraushaar noted that pressure intensifies on both the system and the people who are slipping through the cracks.
However, he thinks the Regina Street Team is making a difference by offering a better way to ensure that fewer people fall victim to service gaps. The team strives to accomplish that goal through phone calls to connect individuals with social supports, by delivering food or water, providing basic first aid, helping with paperwork and more.
“We’ve seen a big improvement, but it is disheartening at times, too. It’s tiring,” he said. “These are somebody’s sons and daughters, moms and fathers; there’s kookums and mushums out there. Somebody loves these people. They’re humans.”
Kraushaar added that so much positive impact is seen from making personal connections, and it can be as simple as making a phone call.
While setting up chairs in Pat Fiacco Plaza ahead of Thursday’s announcement, Kraushaar did just that for a gentleman sitting nearby who had nowhere else to go.
Kraushaar made a call on the man’s behalf to New Beginnings — the city’s temporary shelter, located just three blocks away. The shelter had a bed free so a staff member walked over to Victoria Park to help him make it to the doors.
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“Sometimes that’s all it is, is communication,” said Kraushaar.
An hour later, the Government of Saskatchewan pledged $325,000 annually to fund the Regina Street Team, starting in 2025, as part of the province’s $40-million Approach to Homelessness strategy announced last fall. A pro-rated $205,000 will be provided immediately to finish out 2024.
Formerly known as the Community Support Team, Kraushaar’s crew used to be exclusively funded by the City of Regina through two local branches — Community and Social Impact Regina and the Regina Downtown Business Improvement District (RDBID).
“We are proud to support the expansion of your services to ensure more individuals of our city have access to the help they need,” said Minister of Social Services Gene Makowsky, who was joined by Mayor Sandra Masters and representatives from RDBID.
Right now, the street team largely serves the downtown area, with a little overlap into the Heritage and North Central neighbourhoods. Thanks to this new funding, the team plans to expand its presence further into those neighbourhoods as well as Cathedral.
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“These are programs that are really needed, and it’s important to start investing into programs that are working,” said Kraushaar. “It’s nice to see (investment) but there is still way more to be done.”
The street team is “not a fix,” Kraushaar went on to say. It’s more of a stopgap to help address problems caused by bigger, more complex issues — some of which are policy or system related, like needed changes to social assistance programs.
“We knew there was a better way (and) this is what has to happen,” he said.
With about 15 people on staff, including a handful of social workers, the Regina Street Team pulls together stakeholders from the city, the Comeback Society, Regina Police Service and now the province.
Kraushaar said street counselling is like a bridge — a connector between people and agencies like the Ministry of Social Services, hospitals, and non-profits offering aid.
He added that lots of people don’t trust institutions, either from a bad experience in the past or because of too-long waitlists. But they do trust faces they know, and sometimes people simply don’t know where to go or who to call for what they need.
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“The term ‘meeting people where they’re at’ gets thrown around a lot,” Kraushaar said. “I’ve used it before too and it really is that, but it’s more than that, because it’s also meeting them where you can’t find them.
“It’s just changing the way things are done — and it’s not like reinventing the wheel. It’s just adjusting it so it actually rolls properly.”
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Although the Regina Street Team “does excellent work,” agreed Opposition critic for social services Meara Conway, she said the province’s funding promise is essentially a bandage to a self-inflicted wound.
“It was developed at the municipal level in response to the extreme needs in our community and conditions directly exacerbated by the Sask. Party’s short-term thinking on mental health and addictions, housing, and the broken SIS (Saskatchewan Income Support) program,” she said in a statement issued Thursday.
“Waiting until three weeks before an election to finally step in to support this work without addressing the underlying causes shows just how out of touch the Sask. Party has become.”
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The province has also pledged to support the opening of a permanent city-owned shelter, which Regina city council will discuss later this month for a second time after a previously proposed location was rejected in June.
The Regina Street Team patrols downtown from Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. For anyone in that area who needs assistance or sees someone in distress but doesn’t require emergency services, they can call 1-306-537-3727 to reach a team member.
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