Nipissing First Nation hosted a Community Wellness Summit, focused on addressing issues of homelessness and substance abuse. The conference began on Thursday, January 30, and concluded today, Jan. 31, with the final sessions being held at the Duchesnay Community Hall.
Each day offered various panel talks, guest speakers, and presentations with the goal of addressing these social issues as a community, and through that dialogue, work toward helping those in need.
Cathy Bellefeuille-Stevens, the Chief of Nipissing First Nation, took time at the conference to give BayToday a call to share how the event was going. She noted the turn out was great, with many community members taking in the sessions.
She noted, “It’s certainly giving the opportunity for community members to engage with experts, and those in leadership positions. We have psychologists, doctors, and traditional healers within the community, and we’re gathering them together so we can talk about these issues of substance use and homelessness.”
“As a community,” the Chief continued, “We need to come together and talk about it and see how we can help some of these people to bring them to a better place.”
She emphasized that homelessness amidst First Nation communities is not as visible as it is within urban centres. For instance, you don’t often see people sleeping in doorways or upon grates. However, it does exist. There have been encampments on the fringes of the community, and the police and community outreach members often check in on those folks.
See: Report: Northern Ontario seeing 'staggering' homelessness growth
“It’s a sad situation, so we’re trying to come up with solutions,” Chief Bellefeuille-Stevens said. Nipissing First Nation offers various programs to help people battling addiction, specifically the Right Path Counselling service.
Part of the summit’s goal is to remind NFN members of those services and provide information about the help available. The Chief noted, “We have tremendous programming going on here, but I think it’s underused.”
The summit helps to spread the word of what is available to people. Helping people overcome addictions will also help them overcome homelessness.
The Chief emphasized, “We don’t want to push our homeless population out of our community, so we’re trying really hard to give them what they need and be able to get to a healthier place in our own community.”
These issues are difficult to solve, but the summit – a first of its kind for Nipissing First Nation – is a way to get people together to work towards solutions.
“We care about these people,” Chief Bellefeuille-Stevens said. “They are still part of our community, and we want to come together and talk about this so that we can find some direction on where we can go to help the people who are living in those situations and living with addictions.”
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.