The centre will be housed in a building close to the Baffin Regional Hospital recently vacated by theQimaavik women's shelter. Although there's much preparation to do before opening the centre, Picco said he hopes to have it up and running in four to six weeks. He envisions the centre offering a variety of activities, ranging from day activities through residential and outreach programs. He hopes the centre would offer some respite to families dealing with members who live with some form of mental illness. But there are people living at the homeless shelter who could also benefit from this facility.
Later plans involve the use of residential and outreach components.
Doug Sage, the director of mental health for Nunavut's health and social services department, said their priorities right now are hiring staff and planning a suitable program. There's also an urgent need to provide shelter for homeless people who live with mental illness, Sage said. Gordon Barnes, the director of the Oqota Homeless Shelter, says that 20-30 per cent of the shelter's clients have some kind of mental illness. Sage said the centre would help fill the needs of people caught in the gap between homelessness and those psychiatric problems that need hospitalization. But he stressed that not all homeless people are mentally ill.