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Nelson CARES, Street Outreach given CBT grants

Sixteen organizations throughout the Basin are splitting $1 million
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The Nelson Street Outreach Program is one of 16 organizations being funded by the Columbia Basin Trust. Photo: Tyler Harper

Sixteen social organizations throughout the Columbia Basin are set to split up a $1 million grant.

The Columbia Basin Trust announced Wednesday that Nelson CARES, the Nelson Street Outreach Program and ANKORS were among the beneficiaries.

Nelson CARES will be granted $178,000, Street Outreach is getting $15,000 and ANKORS is being handed $120,000 for its work throughout the basin.

“People are taking the Street Outreach Team’s offers of help to get into housing, to go to addictions treatment and to take care of their health and mental health needs, and generally feel like someone cares about them and how they are doing,” said Nelson Street Culture Collaborative chair Rona Park in a statement.

“There are lots of challenges in doing the work, but the members of the collaborative, which includes several Baker Street business owners and police, believe we are on the right track and are getting closer to offering the kind of caring, co-ordinated responses we’ve been hoping for since the outset of the project.”

Other projects include: the Kaslo Housing Society ($15,000), Kootenay Boundary Community Services Co-op ($45,000), and the Ktunaxa Nation ($114,405).

The money for the Ktunaxa is funding the development of their own justice system based on the medicine wheel.

“The Ktunaxa Nation is committed to ensuring Aboriginal people involved in the justice system are not falling through the cracks,” said social sector director Debbie Whitehead. “Our hope is this project will help to circumvent crime involvement and reduce recidivism by addressing the root causes of criminal behaviour.”