Winnipeg friendship centre restoration steps forward By: Niigaan Sinclair Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Sep. 29, 2021

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/09/2021 (1184 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s not a resurrection, because the spirit never left.

“We’re calling it a reclamation and restoration,” Rachel Sansregret says.

Sansregret is Métis and the new chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Indigenous Friendship Centre Inc., an alliance of Indigenous leaders and grassroots activists seeking to bring back one of the most important community organizations in city history.

“The Winnipeg Indian and Métis Friendship Centre in many ways encompasses the story of this place,” Sansregret says. “There’s been a huge gap in our community, but it’s a place we’ve never forgotten.”

After financial mismanagement, board upheaval, and poverty in the nearby neighbourhood swallowed up the friendship centre in 2018, the doors were closed and its home at 45 Robinson St. seized, alongside its remaining assets, ending a nearly 60-year legacy in Winnipeg.

As Canada marks the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, it’s critical to reflect on the centre’s role for urban Indigenous peoples’ lives.

Since 1959, it was one of the only safe places Indigenous people could go for assistance, whether it was First Nations citizens needing help to transition to urban life or Métis and non-status peoples accessing employment or housing programs.

Cultural institutions, language programs, and support groups started there. Food, tea, and kindness were a daily staple. Youth, many of them for the first time, played sports, learned how to dance pow wow, and could sit and learn from elders.

The Winnipeg Indian and Métis Friendship Centre, one of the first in Canada, was a one-stop corrective for the problems the Indian Act, residential schools, and racist legacies produced.

At its peak in the 1990s, 30,000 people annually walked through its doors – and not just Indigenous people. Teachers and their students, church congregations and, of course, tens of thousands of bingo players used the centre to visit, learn, and build community.

“A friendship centre is a place of connection,” Sansregret says, “and this is why it’s needed and we are bringing it back.”

It’s perhaps needed now more than ever. Counting roughly 114,000, Winnipeg has the largest urban Indigenous population in the country. Nearly 58,000 are youth.

“Instead of funding reactive institutions that create more problems, like policing and child welfare, we have to proactive. That’s where the friendship centre comes in.” — Rachel Sansregret, CEO of Winnipeg Indigenous Friendship Centre Inc.

“The past few years has seen huge growth in poverty and, alongside it, violence, street gangs, sexual exploitation, domestic abuse and homelessness, which has only got worse during the (COVID-19) pandemic,” Sansregret says.

“Instead of funding reactive institutions that create more problems, like policing and child welfare, we have to proactive. That’s where the friendship centre comes in.”

In 2019, two groups — Aboriginal Visioning for the North End and the Winnipeg Indigenous Executive Circle — were joining with representatives from the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre to plan to breathe life back into the friendship centre.

After presenting a proposal in June 2019 to the Manitoba Association of Friendship Centres (the body that oversees such facilities in the province) their plan received unanimous approval.

“Now we have everything in place,” Sansregret says. “We just got to get the building back.”

The initiative is spearheading three phases, called: “Reclaim, Restore, and Revive.”

The first is to buy the since-condemned building and land at 45 Robinson St. and demolish it. That will cost around $1.4 million.

The next is to build a new friendship centre, which will cost just under $13 million.

The last — and most ambitious step — is to staff and build the programming necessary for the North End community and make the organization sustainable. There are also plans to build a much-needed 60-unit seniors and elders living space. The cost of this phase: $17.5 million.

“A friendship centre is a place of connection and this is why it’s needed and we are bringing it back.” — Rachel Sansregret, CEO of Winnipeg Indigenous Friendship Centre Inc.

That’s almost $32 million to replace an essential service the city let fall apart.

“We’ve launched a fundraising campaign,” Sansregret says. “But we have to get moving.”

Current 45 Robinson St. owner Median Credit Union has announced it cannot continue to carry the debt of former friendship centre site and must sell — soon.

Sansregret and her group have eight months to find the funds. While they can accept donations via a partnership with Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata, they soon will have their own taxable status.

They are, of course, appealing to all three levels of government for support and have already received guarantees of operational funding if fundraising is successful.

They are also offering opportunities for organizations to partner as tenants and reside in the new building.

The future is bright and full of potential but many question marks — and dollars — remain for the new Winnipeg Indigenous Friendship Centre.

“The spirit of this place, this community, is still here and we are working hard to help it,” Sansregret says. “I just hope others see it, too.”

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca