Funding issue may force CAIRS closure

Four Yukon organizations which have been providing services to residential school survivors will run out of some core funding at the end of the month.

Four Yukon organizations which have been providing services to residential school survivors will run out of some core funding at the end of the month.

In Whitehorse, it could mean the Committee on Abuse in Residential Schools (CAIRS) will have to close the doors at its Fourth Avenue centre, where clients go to receive counselling or use shop equipment to create art or make other retail items.

Norman Drynock, CAIRS’ executive director, said this morning he’s in the middle of going through the organization’s records of the assistance it provides to support applications for ongoing funding from different channels.

If CAIRS is unable to secure additional funding, it will have to close its doors at the end of June, he told the Star.

Drynock hopes he can get enough money to at least keep the doors open, even it means downsizing from five staff members and moving into a smaller location.

“We have a three-month wind-down period, April, May and June, if nothing turns up,” he said.

For several years, CAIRS, the Kwanlin Dun First Nation, the Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society and the Northern Tutchone Tribal Council have been receiving core funding from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. It’s been used to assist residential school survivors and their families.

The last contribution agreement was signed for the four organizations in 2007, with the understanding funding would end this March 31.

Wayne Spear, a communication officer with the healing foundation, explained from Ottawa this morning that even though everyone knew the contributions agreements were ending, it’s still difficult to accept.

And there was nothing new in terms of more funding for local projects like CAIRS in last week’s federal budget, he pointed out.

Spear said federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty did announce $199 million for Health Canada to address the legacy of residential schools, though it’s not clear yet how that money is to be spent.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation was established in 1998 as a vehicle to help Canada deal with the lasting and devastating effects of residential schools.

Part of the foundation’s mandate was to organize support programs at the community level.

In 2007, CAIRS signed a new three-year contribution agreement for a total of $603,000; the contribution to Kwanlin Dun’s program over the same three years was $710,748; $876,323 was provided for the Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society and $616,000 went the Northern Tutchone program based out of Pelly Crossing.

Drynock said confidentiality provisions in CAIRS’ contribution agreement prevent him from speaking specifically about financial arrangements, though he did say the core funding from the healing foundation supports four of the five staff positions.

And CAIRS could use more staff to begin with, he said.

As administrator and counsellor, Drynock said he’s already feeling burned out in the two years he’s been the executive director for the organization.

In addition to the assistance to residential school survivors who need to file claims as part of the residential school settlement process, CAIRS provides counselling services and an outreach program, he explained.

He said in the second quarter of 2008, the busiest quarter on record for CAIRS, staff had 1,942 points of contact with clients requiring a whole array of different services.

For programs that cost as much as CAIRS to run, there have been no alternatives for additional funding in the last three years because all the federal funding was committed.

What funding is available now remains to be seen, Drynock said, though he’s putting the numbers together to catalogue just how busy CAIRS has been dealing with the lingering effects of Indian residential schools.