The Whitehorse Youth Centre will receive a $100,000-boost from the city to buy a permanent home.

That could be sometime away though as the Whitehorse Youth Centre prepares to move into the former Forsythe Steel building at the end of Sixth Avenue in approximately 1 1/2 weeks for a six-month term.

At Monday night's city council meeting, members voted in favour of giving the $100,000-grant from the city's Building Replacement Fund to the Whitehorse Youth Centre. The money would be submitted in trust to the solicitor involved in the sale.

The centre had been negotiating to buy a building at 6210 Sixth Ave., which currently houses a daycare centre.

However, in an interview this morning, the youth centre society's president, Tony Zedda, said it is no longer looking at buying the daycare centre after the option to rent the Forsythe Steel building came up.

Council learned Monday night that the centre is working on a six-month rental lease for the Forsythe Steel building.

Zedda said the six-month lease will give the youth centre 'time to breathe' before looking for a permanent location. There could be a more long-term possibility at the structure volunteers are getting ready for the youth.

Zedda noted the society wants to proceed one step at a time on the purchase.

In the meantime, the youth centre is continuing to operate some of its programs out of Whitehorse Elementary School and other locations, though the drop-in will reopen at the Forsythe Steel building when it is ready.

The society was evicted from its former Fourth Avenue location at the end of February because the owner of that building wanted a more long-term lease.

This left the youth centre looking for a short-term location while it also worked on finding a permanent place it could purchase.

Zedda said this morning the funding from council may be used at a future date when the centre finds a permanent location.

The $100,000 was originally set aside by city council in 2001 to go toward a permanent youth centre.

An administrative report which went to council on the issue noted that to secure a mortgage, it could be more appropriate to submit the $100,000 in trust to the solicitor involved in the sale.

Zedda said the rental of the new facility will likely be approximately one-third of what it was paying for its Fourth Avenue location. The society had been paying approximately $6,000 per month at the old location. The money that is saved can be put toward programming, he said.

Coun. Dave Stockdale, who's been a councillor for more than 20 years, recalled at an earlier meeting that his campaign for office in 1983 focused on getting a youth centre in the city.