The Safe Harbour youth facility in Saint John’s south end has re-opened its doors over one year after shuttering.
The beleaguered 10-bed facility on Broad Street, which offers emergency and transitional housing for homeless and at-risk youth, shut down last January after being open for less than a year.
With a lien registered against the building by the contractor, all of the fundraising options dried up and the facility shut its doors. Partners for Youth CEO John Sharpe says they’re very confident in being able to sustain the program.
“We’ve addressed the debt on the building through a donation from the diocese, the Fredericton Anglican diocese, which was critical in putting all these pieces together so there’s no debt on the building, we lease the building from the diocese because they’re the owners, we lease it for $1 a year,” says Sharpe.
“Our responsibility and our goal fundraising-wise is to raise an additional $100,000 a year we’ve had a really great response from private and public donors, corporate and foundation donors and individuals within our campaign.”
The provincial government will be giving $225,000 to the facility annually.
1/2 Today we opened #SafeHarbourHouse in #SaintJohn Transitional supportive housing for homeless and near homeless youth in the region.
— Partners For Youth (@pfyouthnb) March 1, 2017
2/2 It’s not a day to celebrate, its a day to acknowledge the need 4 services & admit that all of us must do more to prevent this reality.
— Partners For Youth (@pfyouthnb) March 1, 2017
