Downtown Saskatoon dance studio owner worries about proposed shelter site across the street

The latest potential site announced for a Saskatoon emergency shelter is not going over well with owners of a dance studio located across the street.

An owner of Second Act Studios on Pacific Avenue — directly across the street from the proposed site — questions the city’s process for choosing the location of the temporary 30 to 40 bed homeless shelter.

Co-owner Andrea Calow was shocked to the get the news in the media and immediately started to worry.

“We have about 250 students here at Second Act. We are a private school, and approximately 150 of those students are of elementary age,” Calow said.

The proposed shelter is on city-owned property and will be renovated to offer amenities like showers, bathrooms, and a kitchen.

Second Act Studios show in the background, with the proposed shelter site on the left - Sept. 10, 2024. (Carla Shynkaruk / CTV News)

“We believe that it is a necessary project for the city to open up and be able to support our homeless members in our community. But our obvious, immediate concern is for our students,” she says.

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Calow expressed concerns that some of her students will feel threatened coming to the studio, especially at night.

The studio is designated as a private school and according to Calow, they had to present their plan to city council and the neighbourhood in 2023 before they could open, but she questions why the same process isn’t needed in this case.

A letter was circulated this week by the city explaining the shelter proposal and encouraging residents and businesses to attend meetings next Monday, which the councillor for the ward encourages.

While the studio owners are concerned about the wellbeing of their hundreds of students, Ward 6 Coun. Cynthia Block says those concerns need to be balanced with the needs and wellbeing of those who are struggling to survive without a roof over their heads.

“It’s hard for any policy maker to find the right answer, but it’s important for residents and businesses to have their say,” said Block.

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Ultimately, council will make the decision and Block said she’ll be open to hear the community’s concerns.

“Its hard, it’s hard on business and its hard on community in general,” Block said.

The studio is rented out to twelve different groups, with students coming and going at various times of the day, Calow says.

“I can’t be here all the time keeping an eye on our children coming and going.”

Being downtown, she says they are no strangers to the activity that comes along with people who are unhoused. They’ve dealt with incidents of people sleeping in their entrance, needles being left on the ground as well people using the front of the building as a restroom. She fears this will be compounded with a shelter across the street.

The last proposed shelter location, a former fire hall in Sutherland, was later scrapped by council in the wake of protests by community members and parents of an elementary school less than a block away — with the help of a small but vocal contingent of Fairhaven residents dead-set on keeping shelters out of residential neighbourhoods.

In that case, councillors passed a motion changing the criteria for the selection of a shelter site, barring one from being opened within 250 metres of a catholic or public elementary school.

Calow hopes council hears their concerns and reconsiders its choice once again.

Beyond the public meetings on September 16 in council chambers, councillors will decide how long the shelter would operate at a regular council meeting on September 25. The longest it can be open is 18 months, as it is classified as temporary.

The shelter is part of a provincial plan top tackle the dual humanitarian crises of addiction and homelessness that have gripped the province’s cities. As part of its plan, the province left the job of choosing a shelter site to the city, while it will foot the bill and the sites will be operated by the Alberta-based non-profit the Mustard Seed.