Souls Harbour to make bid for grant to create shelter at soup kitchen site

Souls Harbour Rescue Mission is making its third bid for the $100,000 grand prize awarded by the Aviva Community Fund, with hopes of creating a homeless shelter at the Halifax soup kitchen site.

"We're looking at a smaller group of people that we can work with in a more personal way," says Souls Harbour executive director, Michelle Porter.

Porter says she wants to build a sleeping loft at the centre on Cunard Street that will help former inmates, studentsand recovering addicts. Staff will also provide support, such as assistance with writing resumes, to help the guests find a place of their own.

Another shelter not the answer

Jim Graham, executive director of the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia, says Halifax needs permanent housing rather thananother shelter.

"The question really is around support," he says. "There are people, individuals and families, who require support to maintain and sustain their housing."

Graham says the municipality has 206 permanent shelter beds, increasing to 220 in the winter, and the occupancy for the past eight years has been roughly 87 per cent.

Porter agrees that helping people find permanent homes is what's most important, but in the interim, the people Souls Harbour is hoping to help may not be suited to larger shelters.

"I feel this is a really unique program in Halifax because, yes, we have shelters and that is great and we are getting more and more people into affordable housing.But there's this little group in between that just needs a little bit more attention."

History of success

Porter and her husband, Ken, founded Souls Harbour in Regina 17 years agobefore establishing the Halifax charity in 2010.

The Aviva Community Fund donates $1 million a year to different charitable community initiatives across Canada. Souls Harbour won the grand prize of $100,000 in 2014, when it used the winnings to renovateits kitchen. The organization won again in 2015and used the money to finishthe dining room.

Souls Harbour's application must first be approved by an Aviva Community Fundcommittee. Public voting will begin in October.