Saskatoon City Council granted a lease extension for the Saskatoon Tribal Council’s temporary shelter and wellness centre Monday.

Council unanimously voted in favour of extending the lease until June 15th.

Close to a dozen speakers presented to council prior to the vote with some sharing their concerns about the downtown facility and others who expressed their gratitude and appreciation for the wellness centre.

Among those who presented was Brent Brazeau who calls the wellness centre home.

The 59-year-old addressed council wearing donated clothes. He thanked everyone involved including the fire chief, police chief and Tribal Chief Mark Arcand for what they do for the shelter.

Brazeau then urged council to extend the lease.

“And where are at the end of the line, of humanity’s line, of your line apparently and we have nothing left and now we face a, believe me, these last two weeks have very, very hard on everyone, staff and relatives because the uncertainty of what we were going to do.”

Some hurdles are in the way for council to sign-off on the full lease extension of one year until April 2023. The bylaw states that temporary shelters can only run for a period of six months. This means a bylaw change would have to take place along with a public notice period.

Council agreed to start the process on eventually changing the bylaw to extend the lease to April 30th, 2023. Council also passed a motion to have the City, STC, and other stakeholders find better avenues on addressing security and cleanliness issues surrounding the temporary shelter.

The shelter currently offers 75 beds for people needing a place to stay along with food, laundry and counselling services.

STC is seeking a building on 20th Street in the Pleasant Hill neighbourhood as one of the possible sites for their permanent shelter.