THUNDER BAY — A longstanding social services and recovery support not-for-profit will be moving into a new building in a little over one month’s time.
P.A.C.E. (or People Advocating for Change through Empowerment) will be relocating from its current home on Victoria Avenue East to a site on George Street, right across from Shelter House in mid-July, executive director Georgina McKinnon said.
“We're hoping to have a seamless move where we can stay open here on Victoria Avenue until we're ready to open up the doors,” she said.
“So, I gave us a two-week timeframe from when things move out of this location to there, so we can stay open here while we're setting up at the new spot.”
McKinnon said the new location will include all of the services that P.A.C.E. has historically offered, such as computer and telephone access, showering and laundry facilities, and educational and social programming. She added that it will also house additional resources that are now based out of P.A.C.E. as part of its role in Thunder Bay’s Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (or HART) hub — such as a nurse practitioner, a nurse, counsellors and an expert in helping people navigate various social services.
“It's just going to improve when we get to our new location,” she said.
According to information provided by the Ontario government when it announced the openings of the first nine HART hubs in the province, the George Street location would eventually be the site of the city’s HART hub.
Thunder Bay was approved as one of the cities in the first round of hubs, led by NorWest Community Health Centres in partnership with numerous other local service providers — including P.A.C.E. — after the Ford government mandated the closure of NorWest’s Path 525 safe consumption and on-site drug testing location on Simpson Street.
The HART hubs do not allow for supervised drug use and harm reduction, nor drug testing. NorWest, in partnership with the City of Thunder Bay, was approved for federal funding, which was announced in February, for mobile drug testing services.
P.A.C.E. will continue to offer seasonal warming and cooling centre access at the new location, McKinnon said.
Another benefit of the George Street site, she said, will be the development of supportive housing spots.
“We're going to partner with some of the housing agencies to fill the units upstairs with lightly-supported housing, McKinnon said. “So, hopefully their last stage of supported housing before they're on their own.”
“I’m so excited about that.”
The new site’s proximity to Shelter House is also a plus, McKinnon said, as both organizations’ services go hand-in-hand.
“It's going to be a great benefit because, now, instead of standing outside in line in the cold evenings, they can sit at P.A.C.E. until Shelter House’s doors open for them to go in for the night,” she said.
“They'll (then) be able to come right out of Shelter House across the road, so it'll be helpful for all of our clients as well as the businesses in this area.”
Overall, McKinnon said she’s thrilled with how things are developing.
“I am elated,” she said. “I mean, when I took over P.A.C.E. in 2018, we were losing our funding and our doors were closing.”
“Since then, we've opened in Nipigon, where we didn't have an office and we've grown Thunder Bay P.A.C.E. exponentially, so it's pretty exciting to be doing all of this,” McKinnon continued.
“Basically, I do this because I want to help, and the more ways P.A.C.E. can help, the better.”
