Saskatoon cold weather strategy used to co-ordinate shelter for homeless people during Tuesday's storm

Saskatoon's cold weather strategy was used to make sure people could access a warm location during Tuesday's winterstorm.

Organizations worked together to make sure homeless people had the resources they needed.

"We knew the weather was going to get very dangerous, very quickly," said Priscilla Johnstone, executive director of the Saskatchewan Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP).

Johnstone helps run the cold weather strategy. The strategy is designed to help services to work together to make sure everyone in Saskatoon has a warm place to sleep on a cold night. Itwas created in December 2012.

She said there's a group of about 20 community organizations, along with Saskatoon emergency management and police, who are a part of the strategy. They meet every fall to plan on how to mitigate barriers during extreme weather conditions.

Johnstone said things went well for SHIP on Tuesday. She said there was a co-ordinated effort between organizations to make sure all of their shelter capacities could best support the homeless population during the storm. She said there had been emergency meetings since Monday to finalize support for the community, and the conversation around the increase in homelessness had been going on for months.

"We had all those co-ordinated conversations as to what's the current capacity, outreach support services, whose available for extra hours, and making sure that shelters had appropriate support," she said.

The storm Tuesday left parts of Saskatchewan without power and brought poor visibility on highways. The RCMP had to remind people that it can be difficult for emergency responders to reach them during a blizzard. The storm brought high winds, freezing rain and heavy snow.

Members of the community helped each other out. People were handing out warm clothes at the White Buffalo Youth Lodge.

"We've got so many people here in Saskatoon that actually go above and beyond in regards to the supports to help the vulnerable populations in extreme weather," Johnstone said.

"That just goes to show the co-ordinated collective in regard to Saskatonians and how they want to actually band together and help those that are less fortunate."