Sweetgrass and CFWE news briefs - Nov. 8, 2015

Homeward
Trust kicks off campaign to reach most vulnerable homeless

November 9, 2015. Homeward Trust launches its Edmonton 20,000 Homes Campaign today. The
campaign is a national movement of communities to permanently house 20,000 of Canada’s most vulnerable homeless people by July 1, 2018. The campaign will create a registry to identify needs, prioritize housing efforts, and measure progress throughout the campaign. The focus will be on housing the most vulnerable, chronically homeless in Edmonton – those who have lived on the streets for more than one year, and who face grave health and safety risks because of their homelessness. Street outreach is an essential part of the campaign. “In spite of our success with the Housing First program, we haven’t been able to reach everyone. There are still those who have been living on the streets for years, and we have to do more as a community to ensure we are reaching all the chronically homeless in our city,” said Susan McGee, CEO of Homeward Trust. She said Homeward Trust and its partners have been able to assist 5,000 people in finding permanent housing. November is National Housing month.

November 9, 2015. The Canadian Native Friendship Centre, in partnership with the Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association, Alberta Aboriginal Relations, and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada in Alberta region, and the City of Edmonton, continues its community consultation today under the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. In the initial consultations held in March, participants identified the areas to focus. Today’s discussion will centre around housing. Three more facilitated engagement sessions will be held. Sessions are open to Aboriginal peoples living in urban centres, organizations providing programs
and services, and other stakeholders. Participants in these sessions will identify strategies and actions that will be incorporated into a revised UAS Edmonton community strategic plan. This Edmonton strategic plan will in turn inform an Alberta-wide UAS regional strategic plan, which will guide National Association of Friendship Centres and ANFCA investments from the Urban Partnerships and Community Capacity Supports funding streams under the federal Urban Aboriginal Strategy.

Mother,
two daughters safe

November
8, 2015. Stephanie Nicole Ear has contacted the Calgary police to say she and her two young daughters, Joanna and Marlisa Daniels, are safe. Calgary city police were asking for the public’s assistance in locating the family after Ear and her girls left the Calgary Public Library downtown on Nov. 5 and had not been seen since.

November 6, 2015. The Calgary Police Service have located and are talking to Joseph Jean Nathan Fortier, 43, of Calgary, in relation to a suspicious death in a hotel in the city’s southeast. An autopsy has been completed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Manner of death has not been confirmed and further test results are pending. The woman, whose identification has not been released by the police, was discovered at noon on Nov. 5 by hotel staff.

November 6, 2015. Nakoa Ernest Potts, 28, of Alexis First Nation has been sentenced to four and a half years on a manslaughter charge. Potts told police that he had been drunk and hadn’t slept for 13 days because of his methamphetamine use when he stabbed his younger brother Warren Fox Potts over a drug debt in the hamlet of Glenevis on July 1, 2014. Nakoa Potts had been charged with second-degree murder but was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Mary Moreau ruled the stabbing was “spontaneous and impulsive” as a result of the killer being intoxicated by alcohol and drugs and suffering from a lack of sleep and said she found his remorse to be “genuine” and “from the heart.” Moreau also noted Potts has ADHD and he has a “tragic” family history with a “dysfunctional” upbringing punctuated by sexual abuse, violence and substance abuse. Prior to being sentenced, Potts apologized in court. Potts will be credited with two years for time spent in pre-trial custody so has two and a half years left to serve.