Art for Minneapolis: West Broadway not-for-profit partners with sister agency

Art City has issued a callout to creatives of all kinds for paintings and other flat artworks to show solidarity with residents of Minneapolis.

The West Broadway not-for-profit is hosting a free workshop on Monday to create and collect art to send south of the border.

“There’s a lot of feelings of anxiety because this is a situation that we have no control over and we don’t like it,” said Eddie Ayoub, artistic director of the local community hub.

As ICE operations continue to upend daily life in their sister city, Ayoub said his team wants to give residents a chance to gather, process and take action.

Developers slowly adapting to zoning changes: mayor

Some hotly debated zoning changes aimed at speeding up home construction in Winnipeg haven’t triggered a flood of building applications yet, though thousands of housing units are on the way.

The City of Winnipeg was required to impose three key changes to qualify for its $122-million share of the federal housing accelerator fund. As a result, certain types of development became permitted uses, removing the need for potentially costly and time-consuming public hearings and building applications to get them approved.

That change took effect for multi-family housing developments at mall and major transportation corridor sites in late 2024. City planners received zero applications for that development option by early January, though one has since been approved and another is pending.

In June, the same streamlined process was applied to allow two, three or four housing units to be built on a single lot in most residential areas. Seven development permits have now been issued for that option, which are set to create 18 total housing units.

Creating a city where kids can safely walk, bike to school

If there’s one thing that all Winnipeggers can agree on, other than potholes, it’s the chaos of getting kids to and from school. The frustration extends to households without children who live a short distance to local schools and must deal with traffic jams twice a day.

Coun. Markus Chambers brought the fury of his ward residents into the public eye in early January when he made the first moves on a “stop-drop-go” motion to limit parking to one minute in designated school zones.

How did we get here? Local news outlets asked on their social media for stories from Winnipeggers about their school travel experiences. Comments flowed in about childhoods spent walking and biking to school with friends, and how that has been replaced with door-to-door drives. Meanwhile, MPI reported in October that 36 kids were hit by drivers in the last year. So what changed in the last few decades?

First, there are far more vehicles on our roads, and those vehicles are much bigger and heavier than cars of the past.

Without key GPS data, transit plan lacked direction

For the first six months after Winnipeg Transit’s $20.4-million network overhaul, city officials had little information to assess how well the new system was working.

The city’s data had been plagued by a faulty GPS tracking system that left major gaps in the first four months of ridership and performance numbers, which prevented Winnipeg transit from making significant adjustments to the network.

Flaws in the vision meant to rekindle the city’s relationship with transit have been widely reported — ridership is down, service hours are shorter and passengers are so underwhelmed, some users, in rare cases, have reportedly bought cars for the first time. Instead of encouraging more Winnipeggers onto the bus, the system appears to be driving users away.

The Free Press/Narwhal set out to understand when and why ridership was lagging. While the independent analysis showed declines on weeknights and weekends are far steeper than previously reported, transit officials warned the city’s publicly available figures are unreliable.

Beloved drop-in centre remains a haven for youth after 50 years

Some children are never given the foundational tools at home to ease their way into this world. For a long list of complex reasons, home is not always a haven. And it’s not assured to be a safe place for kids.

But there is a building at the corner of Ross and Sherbrook that serves as both a home and a refuge, where young people find safety, acceptance and love, 365 days a year, anytime, all the time.

“I wouldn’t be alive today if it hadn’t been for Rossbrook House,” is an often-repeated phrase.

In 1976, Sister Geraldine MacNamara (Sister of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary), with the help of other sisters and a group of young men from Winnipeg’s Centennial neighbourhood, founded Rossbrook House as an alternative to the streets.

Protest songs capture horror, hope in times of turmoil

Bruce Springsteen has always held a mirror up to America.

Sometimes that looks like 1975’s Born to Run, about escaping small-town suffocation and hitting the open road. Sometimes that looks like 2001’s American Skin (41 Shots), about the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed 23-year-old Guinean student who was hit by 19 of the 41 rounds fired at him by the NYPD. And sometimes that looks like 1993’s Streets of Philadelphia, which was about the AIDS crisis.

On Wednesday, Springsteen released Streets of Minneapolis, an appropriately Dylan-esque protest song about ICE’s reign of terror in Minnesota. The Boss does not mince words, calling out “Trump’s thugs,” “Miller and Noem’s dirty lies” and naming the two “left to die on snow-filled streets,” Alex Pretti and Renée Good.

No, it’s not subtle. But it can’t be. These are not times for subtlety.

Children’s Museum forced to tighten financial belt, fundraise

The Children’s Museum is a home away from home for the Maes family.

“We come all the time,” says mom Rachel Maes, while watching four of her six kids explore the centre’s toddler zone on a cold Monday afternoon.

“We’re a Métis family, so we can come for free, which is amazing.”

The young family visits the colourful museum at The Forks several times a month during the depths of winter, but that may soon change.

Another erased piece of the Winnipeg that was

The rubble was still smoking a little on Wednesday afternoon, though by then, all that remained of the place were its bones.

Family from the Democratic Republic of Congo navigates chilly firsts alongside IRCOM supports

All Clever Ganza wants to do this winter is build a snowman.

He’s not yet had the chance, as it hasn’t been the right kind of snow — although to the eight-year-old, all snow is snow.

It’s his second winter in Winnipeg after arriving in Canada with his parents and younger brother Travor, 5, in December 2024.

Clever has acclimatized pretty quickly.

Skating trail expected to open in time for New Year’s Day activities at The Forks

Skaters, rejoice: the Nestaweya River Trail at The Forks could be open as early as New Year’s Day, marking one of its earlier openings in recent years.

The port rink on the Assiniboine River and a small section of the the iconic river trail opened on Dec. 31 last year. The earliest recorded opening of the six-kilometre skating trail was Dec. 21, 2013.

“We had a good freeze this year… and we’re hoping for a nice, long season this year,” Adam Dooley, spokesperson for The Forks, said Monday.

Sections of the trail, which snakes along the Red and Assiniboine rivers and meets at The Forks port, have some slush owing to recent snowfall and may take more time to open, Dooley said.

Students tasked with designing shelter for homeless

Concerned about the state of empathy at her suburban high school, a St. Vital teacher has tasked teens with designing transitional homes for their unsheltered neighbours.

Collège Jeanne-Sauvé made headlines in September when a student was involved in an altercation with a man living in nearby Dakota Forest.

Winnipeg police and the Louis Riel School Division reported at the time the man came out of a tent and chased after a group of students, injuring one. Allegations the teenagers provoked the man by hurling insults and items at the man’s tent were also reported.

The Sept. 9 incident — as well as the gossip in its aftermath — led Kay Wojnarski to reach out to End Homelessness Winnipeg for advice.

WRENCH’s Cycle of Giving provides bikes to children in need

The same thing that motivated Gerry Hagglund to participate in a bike building marathon 14 years ago brought him back to the event on Sunday.

“It just seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.

Hagglund was one of more than 100 volunteers who participated in the WRENCH’s 15th annual Cycle of Giving, which sees the organization take bicycles bound for the landfill, restore them and give them to children in need.

More than 350 bicycles were brought back to life during the 24-hour event, which started Saturday at noon.

Students aim to brighten season for struggling young Winnipeggers

A group of students from the University of Manitoba wants to help underprivileged Winnipeggers this month — and assist holiday shoppers along the way.

The 5 Days committee is raising money for Resource Assistance for Youth, an organization on Sherbrook Street that supports homeless young people up to the age of 29 through a variety of programs.

The committee is holding a gift wrapping fundraiser at CF Polo Park every Saturday until Christmas. Shoppers can bring their gifts to the second floor of the mall, close to where Hudson’s Bay used to be located, where volunteers will wrap them in exchange for a donation.

Volunteers are also running a coat check service at the booth.

One of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre’s last survivors, Viola Ford Fletcher, dies at age 111

DALLAS (AP) — Viola Ford Fletcher, who as one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Oklahoma spent her later years seeking justice for the deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving Black community where she lived as a child, has died. She was 111.

Her grandson Ike Howard said Monday that she died surrounded by family at a Tulsa hospital. Sustained by a strong faith, she raised three children, worked as a welder in a shipyard during World War II and spent decades caring for families as a housekeeper.

Tulsa was mourning her loss, said Mayor Monroe Nichols, the first Black leader of Oklahoma’s second-largest city. “Mother Fletcher endured more than anyone should, yet she spent her life lighting a path forward with purpose.”

She was 7 years old when the two-day attack began on Tulsa’s Greenwood district on May 31, 1921, after a local newspaper published a sensationalized report about a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman. As a white mob grew outside the courthouse, Black Tulsans with guns who hoped to prevent the man’s lynching began showing up. White residents responded with overwhelming force. Hundreds of people were killed and homes were burned and looted, leaving over 30 city blocks decimated in the prosperous community known as Black Wall Street.

Derelict historic apartment block gets makeover and thumbs up from neighbourhood

Nearly seven years after fire damage forced tenants to evacuate the Ches-Way Apartments, the once-derelict block in the Wolseley-West Broadway nexus has undergone a complete interior renovation and is nearing full capacity.

Harvest Manitoba expands weekend snack program in province

Thousands more children will get nutritious snacks to eat on weekends thanks to Harvest Manitoba.

Encampment residents defiant as new policy takes effect

As the sun broke through the gap between two high-rise apartments on the north side of the Assiniboine River Monday morning, the large encampment tucked behind the Granite Curling Club lay quiet.

Monday marked the first day of the city’s new encampment policy, which bans such dwellings from more than a dozen areas — including anywhere within 50 metres of a nearby child-care centre, which parts of Mostyn Park are.

According to a recent email obtained by the Free Press from Greg MacPherson, the city’s senior co-ordinator of community development, the Mostyn Park encampment will be among those prioritized for dismantling in the coming weeks.

“I’ve been staying here for five years,” said Peter, who didn’t give his last name. “Why are they going to try to evict me now? And evict me from what? There’s no reason I should have to live like this in my own country.”

Carré civique, le soutien générationnel

Je donne en famille consiste à lever des fonds pour l’avenir du carré civique. La particularité de ce soutien c’est qu’il implique différentes générations, notamment les plus jeunes qui peuvent parfois se sentir éloignés des sujets liés au patrimoine.

David Dandeneau tente de partager son engagement à tous et à différentes générations.

Le membre du conseil d’administration des Ami.e.s du Carré civique de Saint-Boniface (ACCSB) a eu l’idée de lever des fonds pour notamment assurer des dépenses opérationnelles et à terme préparer également le processus d’appel d’offres que s’apprête à lancer la Ville de Winnipeg.

C’est à travers l’ACCSB, qui a reçu le statut officiel d’organisme de bienfaisance et peut donc recevoir des dons depuis mars 2022, que le monde pourra donner ponctuellement pour cette campagne.

Twelve takeaways from the City of Winnipeg budget

Winnipeg’s preliminary 2026 budget includes plenty of road construction projects, expanded late-night bus service, extra firefighters and paramedics, and new safety measures for the downtown Millennium Library. Here are 12 highlights.

Hurrying hard for Jamaican flavours infusing West St. Paul Curling Club

WEST ST. PAUL — This month marks a full decade since Vincent Dennis opened a Caribbean-flavoured restaurant inside the West St. Paul Curling Club.

And although it could be assumed that a person who has spent that much time in the vicinity of rocks and rings would have picked up a thing or two about the roaring game by now, that doesn’t appear to be the case with the Jamaican-born owner of Tropical Thunder.

Not even close.

“I’ve been here since 2015 and I still don’t have a clue what I’m staring at,” Dennis, 52, says with a chuckle, seated at a table offering a perfect view of the 62-year-old club’s four curling sheets.

No dog? No problem: Local program offers offices pup for a day

Brandt and Paisley are raring to start their new jobs. But instead of hellos and handshakes, they’ll most likely be giving their co-workers tail wags and face licks. Not that anyone in the office will mind.