Native Men’s Residence gets green light to open harm reduction shelter

For more than 35 years, the Native Men’s Residence (Na-Me-Res) in Toronto has been supporting Indigenous men experiencing homelessness with housing as well as culturally relevant programming designed to help them heal from trauma and live a good life.

Na-Me-Res currently operates a shelter as well as provides 39 affordable housing units to Indigenous men in need of housing.

Over the next two to three years, they’re looking to expand their scope by opening a harm reduction shelter in the downtown area.

Steve Teekens, Executive Director of Na-Me-Res says it has been a long time coming.

“Currently we operate two shelters, they’re abstinence-based shelters. They really fill a need in our community for people needing shelter spaces, but we don’t operate any harm reduction shelters, any low barrier types of shelters,” he explained. “So we’ve been striving to operate a harm reduction shelter for at least 13 years now. We’ve written a few proposals to the city in the past and not received the green light until recently.”

The new shelter is currently in the design stages and will include the first Indigenous-led Managed Alcohol Program in Ontario which aims to reduce harms for chronic alcoholics, who Teekens explains often develop a dependency on alcohol for daily functioning.

“The idea with this program is to reduce the harms associated with the addictive behaviors they’re engaging in and thus increasing their health,” explained Teekens. “[The program] will help the person using the service to use [alcohol] in a safer manner — maybe help improve their liver functioning. Also, when they’re getting drinks we’re making sure that they get food so again it’s less harm to their liver and their health in the long run.”

Building more affordable housing

Na-Me-Res is also building more than two dozen more affordable housing units for the men it serves.

“Part of our strategic planning is to reduce homelessness for Indigenous men so the best ways to do that is have housing. If there’s no affordable housing in the market, get into the market and create it,” he said. “We have two housing projects in the works right now that we’re waiting to get underway. That will be 29 more units on the market for our guys to rent and we know we’ll probably fill that up in less than a week.”

Teekens adds that 29 units is a drop in the ocean when the need is dire and growing every day. He cites the 2022 Street Needs Assessment, that revealed Indigenous people continue to be overrepresented in the unhoused populations of almost every urban centre in Canada. In Toronto, 15 per cent of homeless people are Indigenous — with men being the majority of that number — but they make up just 0.5 per cent of the total population.

He says more needs to be done to address the homelessness crisis among Indigenous people and adds that it is a critical step towards reconciliation.

“Reconciliation is important and it’s not just making gestures — there has to be actual actions that take place. I’ve been an advocate for the National Indigenous Housing Strategy for quite some time now. I know our current Trudeau government promised it three elections ago. Where is it?” he asked.

Teekens believes a housing strategy geared towards Indigenous people would help channel funding towards affordable housing for them and show a real commitment to reconciliation efforts on a national scale.

He adds that Canadians can also take steps as individuals toward reconciliation in the context of homelessness.

“If you’re a property owner, maybe a landlord, rent out to someone that’s Indigenous — that’s a simple act of reconciliation,” he said. “Maybe the average Canadian can ask local MPs what’s going on with the national Indigenous housing strategy.”

A life saving and life changing program

In the mean time, Teekens says organizations like Na-Me-Res, that are by and for Indigenous people, are doing their best to make a difference.

Lucas Thorpe, a resident at the shelter says it is his third attempt at going through their program titled Apaenmowineen — which means “having confidence in myself” — run at their transitional housing building called Sagatay.

The course is a three to six month life skills program that includes several culturally specific modules like Cree or Ojibwe language classes, sharing circles, community gardening, drumming and traditional teachings alongside literacy, creative writing, photography, employability workshops and financial literacy.

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Thorpe shared with CityNews that he had an abusive childhood and carries immense trauma from his early life. Among his numerous run-ins with the law, he was charged with attempted murder at age 13. He spent a total of 33 years in prison and between sentences, went to Sagatay twice, but was unable to complete the program. Now that he’s been able to stick with it, he says it’s changed his life.

“I was here twice before and they were a little leery of me, ‘Is he gonna make it this time?’ I had to prove it to them. I had to prove it to myself,” he said. “I’ve been clean and sober for 20 months and I’ve been out of jail for three, four years  — Sagatay has brought me back to my roots. It’s made me get my spirit back.”

Thorpe credits Teekens and the counselors at Sagatay for helping him open up, get in touch with his trauma and work through decades of anger, pain and resentment.

“I’ve been shot twice. I’ve been stabbed 13 times. I lost an eye in prison — the guards were firing rubber shots into the yard and I took three pellets in the eye,” he shared. “This place has made me forget about jail and drugs … that part of my life is so gone. They actually care for you. They love you. And I didn’t get a lot of love when I was a kid. So having strangers love me blows my mind.”

Thorpe says he is determined to put everything he’s learned at Sagatay into practice and make his teachers proud.

“Now, I think I’m on the right journey. I’m on the right road and I’ll stay on the right path. That’s how I’m going to live,” he said. “I thank the creator for giving me a third chance here because I am walking out these doors when I get a place and I’m going to enjoy life.”