ROB MURRAY: I’m speaking with Michelle Rhode and Sean Krausert from the REST Program in Canmore. A quick overview for those who aren’t familiar or might have missed our first interview – what is the REST Program?

SEAN KRAUSERT: The REST Program is a low barrier emergency shelter for those who would find themselves out in the cold with no place to go, which can happen for a variety of reasons. We ran a pilot project, technically from March 1st to April 11th. I say ‘technically’ because we actually helped some people in February during the cold snap, then while we shut the doors of St Michael’s for staying at the hall we did continue to help people through the end of April as well.

RM: What are the final results of this pilot program? Did you see a lot of demand? Were you able to help a lot of people?

MICHELLE RHODE: The program was definitely utilized. We hired 10 coordinators locally. They were amazing, and we helped more than 20 individuals since February. Several of those people stayed more than one night. Definitely there is a need. I would suspect that with COVID this year it’s been harder for those who are already marginalized, and a lot of people lost their jobs and found themselves without housing. It was a bit of a cold spring, so some individuals who have been staying out in the woods found themselves in need of a warm, dry place to sleep. We did have a lot of referrals as well from the RCMP, hospital, and YWCA Banff. That was good. We had some really strong partnerships in place.

RM: We’re obviously looking forward to some great weather here over the spring and the summer, but it’s Canada so winter will always roll around again. What’s the future looking like for REST? What are your goals for the upcoming seasons?

SK: We’re heading into the evaluation process. Michelle will be leading that; she’s developed a survey. They just need to email Michelle and she can send out the survey link. We’re going to be talking with all the various stakeholders. This is a very collaborative project; it’s an H2HC and St. Michael’s collaboration, but the Town of Canmore has been very helpful as our fiscal agent, and community members, neighbours, they’re all very important in the conversation that’s going ahead. We’re going to take that time to evaluate, and then based on that evaluation we’ll determine what the program could look like, and then we’ll kick into our fundraising mode to make sure that we have the resources available to carry out that program.

RM: Were there any unexpected hurdles you faced during the pilot? Any unexpected successes?

MR: We were aware of the risks with COVID. Luckily, we did not have any issues. We have no complaints at this point from neighbours and we worked very collaboratively with the neighbours. They’ve given us feedback that they would like to know more in advance if we go forward, and that’s absolutely valid, but we had no noise complaints or anything like that. These are just people, they are people in our community who wanted a warm place to sleep and were quite pleased to have the space to come in, lay down, warm up, and have a bite. As far as challenges – we found that people maybe needed more than we anticipated. We thought we’d provide shelter, and suddenly we found that we’d have somebody who hasn’t eaten in 24 hours and we have just snacks. We also had people who needed a shower. FCSS has their shower program on Thursdays, but we also partnered with a local hostel so people were able to go every day of the week to have a shower in the morning. There were some added needs that we didn’t anticipate, and we were able to partner with a number of different organizations and businesses, and local individuals who came forward. We had some private donors who donated coffee cards for breakfast in the morning. Our top funders that came forward were the Rural Development Network, the Banff-Canmore Community Foundation, the Bow Valley Christmas Spirit Campaign, and many private donors and partners and stuff.

RM: Are there places online people can find out more about the REST Program?

MR: The Facebook page is up and the survey is on there, and we’re posting updates regularly on what’s happening and will continue to do so. We also just really want to give a big thanks to the community who stepped up. I was overwhelmed personally with the support that we received.

SK: Canmore continues to be an incredible community.

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