Saskatoon Construction III

[Crisis]

It's been an interesting past couple of weeks on the Saskatoon Construction thread. We're generally much more sedate and this thread has less traffic than the Regina one, but not recently. The Baydo Towers and renewed Lighthouse discussions have really got things hopping here, and that's a good thing.

I don't think there's perfect solution to the Lighthouse issue. Regardless of what we may want all enlightened, compassionate people to think and feel, there's no denying that there is a very real stigma attached to property in the vicinity of the Lighthouse. I may have mentioned this before - When some people from Toronto were in town finalizing the design for EY's space on the 8th & 9th floor of the River Landing East Tower, they asked us to point out the location of the Lighthouse, as they had concerns about its proximity of their new offices. Concern about the Lighthouse had spread from Saskatoon to their Construction Development office in Toronto. Ironically enough, it was some EY folk that were the group targeted in the infamous attempted hatchet attack. That certainly didn’t help the perception of safety in the area.

I contrast that with my personal experience. My wife and I are regular patrons of the Scotiabank Theatre and have been since it first opened as the Galaxy Theatre back in 2006. Our usual parking spot for these movie visits is on 3rd avenue just south of 20th Street, so we have travelled the alley behind the Lighthouse literally hundreds of times during the past 15 years. We often encounter Lighthouse residents there, but never have we been bothered by a single person during that time. In fact, I could count on one hand the times we’ve even been asked for change or a smoke. Have we just been lucky? Based on some of the other anecdotal reports, perhaps we have been. Am I vigilant when in that area? Sure, however, it doesn’t change the fact that I still feel safe near the lighthouse. I’ve had more issues with persistent harassment a couple of blocks from there in the 3rd Avenue and 21st Street region than I ever had around the Lighthouse.

Our construction firm has also done work at the lighthouse. Certainly an interesting venue in which to work with some different hazards (used needles) but again, we had no significant issues with the residents.

Is the Lighthouse too large of a facility for Saskatoon? Perhaps, but these services need to be delivered and, just like construction, there are economies of scale having a large centralized facility vs staffing several smaller ones. If the money is available, then additional facilities spread amongst the requisite neighbourhoods would be preferable but until this happens, having the Lighthouse as it currently exists is far better than having nothing at all. It’s a complex social issue and a bit of an odd one to be debating on Skyscraper Page but at least it gets some of us engaging in a discussion that we otherwise wouldn’t be having.