Uko Akpanuko
Daily Herald
The River Bank Development Corporation (RBDC) is looking for volunteers as it makes plans to complete a Point-In-Time Count Survey/Tally of homeless residents in the City from Oct. 22 – 24.
There will also be an unsheltered count on Oct. 23 from 7 p.m. – 12 a.m. RBDC Reaching Home Project Officer Diana Rodas said the count is vital to those who provide services to vulnerable residents, but the numbers need to be accurate to be useful.
“It helps our city to answer questions about the peoples demographics and services that they access.” Diana Rodas, Reaching Home Project Officer said. “Its also used to create funding decisions and it helps with programme delivery.”
The Point – In -Time Count/Survey will be running simultaneously with one in La Range. The counts are done all over Canada and within the same period.
In 2022, the RBDC counted 120 people experiencing homelessness in Prince Albert. This year there will be need to survey 40 percent – 60 percent of people counted in their count.
“We will need the support and partnership of agencies to either help us to complete surveys or just keeping a tally of how many people they encounter that are experiencing homelessness from Oct. 2022 to 2024,” Rodas said. “The more volunteers that we have the better for us because we know there is safety in numbers.”
The RBDC will also be needing outreach workers to volunteer with for the unsheltered count. There will be volunteer groups of 4 people to ensure safety with the outreach groups consisting of a driver, a lookout, an interview, and a notetaker.
The organization will offer optional training for agencies who are wanting to participate and will be having training sessions for our volunteers. There will be options for people to complete training on two days to try to best accommodate people’s schedules.
“We are really appreciative of the partnerships that we have,” Rodas said. “We got a lot of the agencies working with us. This count wont be able to work if we don’t continue to have those partnerships.”
If anyone is interested in being a volunteer, they can always reach out to me at rbdc.rh2@sasktel.net or give us a call at 306-763-4141 and we will see how we can make them a part of our plans.
