Shovels were dug into North Central soil on Friday, starting the construction of a new 30,000 square foot building for the All Nations Hope Network.

It’s an essential place for Indigenous people that live in urban areas, says programs and research manager, Miranda Keewatin.

“People who live in First Nation communities, they have access to their elders; they have access to their ceremony and to those lodges,” she said. “So, it’s important for places like All Nations Hope Network to make sure that we have that sustainability for the people who walk amongst these streets,”

With three other locations around the city, the network says it’s been running out of capacity for patients in the last half decade.

“We outgrew the space, and we outgrew the outreach centre. There was more need for more space,” said Lana Holinaty, the director of operations.

“Once COVID-19 hit, the numbers tripled,” said Melanie Kingston, the director of community health. We went from 50 to 70 people per day, to probably to about 300 to 350 people per day.”

Currently, Kingston said they’re holding up to 350 people per day.

Located near the corner of 5th Avenue and Albert Street, the two-storey building will have ceremony rooms on the second level. It will also have a basement, mainly for storage purposes.

The main floor is expected to have a warming shelter, doctor’s office and commercial kitchen. As a notable need, it will also have a pharmacy with western and Indigenous medicine.

“Want to have a traditional pharmacy where we provide those natural herbs and those teas and those remedies, the medicine that we combine together that are supposed to be in our diet, our traditional diet,” Keewatin said.

For the construction of the building, $13 million was funded from the Indigenous Services Canada and Indigenous Collaborative Housing funded the $13 million.

“All nations have some very deep-rooted funding partnerships, throughout their years of operation,” said Dave Ball, the project coordination for all nations hope network. “These funders have really assisted, so we are confident that we will get the funding to finish the building.”

The end of the project is expected to take about two years until the building can be fully open.