The Yukon government remains tight-lipped about why an emergency shelter for young adults was temporarily relocated beside a fledgling Whitehorse shelter with a similar aim, but lacking the funding to offer overnight care.

Amidst renovations at the Sarah Steele Building's detox centre on Fifth Avenue, where homeless youth are offered temporary shelter on a night-to-night basis, the government decided to move the shelter in mid-September.

It's now located in a social housing unit right next door to the Angel's Nest, already licensed for 10 beds.

The temporary move has renewed debate over the government's treatment of homeless teens and young adults.

"Not one social agency involved with at-risk youth were notified or told about the move, and to me, that's a slap in the face,” NDP MLA Steve Cardiff said last week. "It's either the government doesn't have a conscience, or they're incompetent.”

Vicki Durrant, director of the Angel's Nest on Jeckell Street, told the Star this week she was shocked when a sign went up on the entrance of the social housing unit next door instructing would-be clients to dial a number before being admitted.

Staff are not allowed to open the door under any circumstances, reads the sign affixed to the door with green duct tape.

"Now how welcoming is that?” asked Durrant. "If you were a kid looking for a place to stay, would you want to stay there?”

For more than three years, Durrant has been on a mission to establish a permanent facility to shelter homeless teens and young adults.

Back in 2007, Durrant and the government stood poised to sign a service and contribution agreement to put her plan into action, but at the last minute, the government balked.

Neither Health and Social Services Minister Glenn Hart nor Premier Dennis Fentie responded to the Star's requests for comment for this story.

Enter the Skookum Jim Friendship Centre, whose emergency referral service for homeless and at-risk youth came on line at the beginning of 2008, shortly after talks between Durrant and the government fell through.

In January 2008, the government gave $191,000 to the friendship centre to fund a referral service for homeless young adults and eight months later provided an additional $80,000 to see the program through to March 2009.

Michele Kolla, the centre's executive director, said Skookum Jim's, which to date continues to run the program, does not operate the emergency youth shelter at the Sarah Steele Building, but runs the referral service, which in 90 per cent of cases, finds youth seeking shelter an alternative to bedding down at the detox centre.

"The majority of the youth are connected back to their communities. That's what our program is about. It's not about permanent housing,” Kolla told the Star last week.

And Skookum Jim's does not have the capacity to run a permanent overnight youth shelter 24/7, said Kolla, who maintains staff at the friendship centre work hard with the resources it has.

"Skookum Jim's does outreach ... we respond to youth calls and we connect the youth back to the family, that's our first priority,” Kolla said. "And if we can't find them a place to stay, then we place them in the (emergency shelter).”

But critics of housing teens in the same building that offers detox services for addicts, insist there is a demostrated need for a permanent and separate facility for homeless, at-risk youth.

In July 2009, Durrant used $50,000 of her own money to purchase the Jeckell Street property, which she now leases to the Youth of Today Society for $3,000 a month.

In the 48-month lease-to-own deal she struck with the society, Durrant agrees to sell the property to the society for the original purchase price ($446,250). That is contrary to media reports during the summer suggesting Durrant was somehow benefiting from the arrangement.

In 2008, around the same time funding was extended to Skookum Jim's for its outreach and emergency shelter referral program, Durrant was trying to extract $1.4 million from the government to get Angel's Nest off the ground.

If the government had ponied up the $1.4 million – what was intended for three years of stable operations funding – Durrant and the Youth of Today Society could have received a $375,000 grant from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. to buy the shelter.

The government claimed it needed "more information” before it would provide the funding.

This was the same Yukon Party government, for which Durrant ran as a candidate and wrote its social policy platform, that denied funding to the Angel's Nest.

Two years later, the former backpackers guesthouse is abuzz with activity and youth programming during the day, but sits empty at night.

Durrant said the $220,000 in base funding the society receives annually from the government allows Angel's Nest to stay open during the day, Monday to Friday.

With an additional $250,000 annually, Durrant maintains, the shelter's 10 beds could be utililized and the practice of sheltering kids at the detox centre could end.

"At 8 a.m., they have to leave (that emergency shelter), and they can't return until 9 p.m. at night, so they're basically on the streets during the day,” said Durrant.

"What we believe is they need the support during the day ... to put goals together and a plan for the day and make sure they're not just out on the street.”

According to Durrant, Hart and Justice Minister Marian Horne took a tour of Angel's Nest during the summer, prior to the temporary relocation of the emergency youth shelter from the detox centre to the social housing unit next door.

But after the visit, in which neither minister indicated there were going to be disruptions in the emergency youth shelter services at the Sarah Steele Building, the Angel's Nest and Durrant have had no communications with government officials.