Danny Toolooktook is full of hope as he smokes a cigarette on the doorstep of an indigenous drop-in centre that he credits with keeping him off the streets, sober, and out of jail.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was homeless, I was drinking, I was doing everything, and if it wasn\u2019t for these people,\u201d says the Ottawa resident, pointing through the window to a group gathered around a small wooden table, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have a house, I wouldn\u2019t be going back to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Shawenjeagamik Drop-in Centre is located just two kilometres from Parliament Hill, where the new Liberal government has made big promises for indigenous people.<\/p>\n
Toolooktook hopes some money trickles down to his home away from home \u2013 a centre that is on its deathbed as a result of federal funding cuts earlier this year. It is Ottawa\u2019s only indigenous drop-in centre.<\/p>\n
The Inuit man says he is certain he would be back in jail if the centre were forced to close.\u00a0 Instead, he is about to begin a 16-week training program<\/a> intended to help indigenous persons find work in the culinary service industry.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people who know who I am,\u201d said Toolooktook. \u201cThey know I\u2019m an ex-con.\u201d But he says that is not who he is. \u201cIt\u2019s just what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rideau Street centre, which provides vital resources to Ottawa\u2019s most vulnerable and under-serviced communities, including indigenous persons who are either homeless or receive some form of social assistance, has enough private funding to survive until the end of March.<\/p>\n