The Southern Alberta Self-Help Association has launched its #BuyABed fundraising campaign in response to funding cuts. (Photo: SASHA)

By David Opinko

SASHA launches #BuyABed fundraiser to support vulnerable Lethbridge residents

Apr 4, 2025 | 9:03 AM

A local non-profit organization is asking for your help to ensure it can continue to care for people in need in Lethbridge.

The Southern Alberta Self-Help Association (SASHA) supports people with mental illness through supportive housing. Clients receive personalized, client-driven programming, supported by a team of specially trained staff team and access to professionals with Recovery Alberta and our community helping to assess needs, develop personalized service plans, and provide access to 24-hour support.

Lengths of stay in the transitional program vary from a few months to up to one year. Long-term clients can stay for as long as the program meets their needs.

The latest update, on April 23, is that the Government of Alberta will not be renewing the lease for SASHA’s House D. The non-profit says the closure will not affect their current client beds but will limit their ability to take in new clients from their wait list.

“In response, we’re focusing on strengthening the support we provide across our original 25 beds – and we need your help to do it.”

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SASHA has launched a new fundraising campaign called #BuyABed where people are asked to make donations of $120. That is the optimal daily cost to provide services for their clients, including housing, programming and meals.

“This donation will cover a client’s housing, meals, and essential programming, providing them with the support they need to continue their recovery journey. Every contribution helps us deliver the kind of care that transforms lives and builds stronger, healthier communities.”

Donations can be made online at https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/33710

SASHA Executive Director Sherri Koskewich says the fundraiser was created in response to recent funding cuts from the Alberta Government.

In 2020, the City of Lethbridge provided SASHA with a grant of $523,543 to purchase a duplex and add 10 permanent supportive housing units for the unhoused and at-risk population, bringing their total capacity up to 35 units.

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“We took them in with the grant from the City and then that process was transferred to the Lethbridge Housing Authority, and one year ago, they decided to operate differently and gave another [provincial] agency the funds,” says Koskewich.

“It was an appropriately-funding program for the individuals we were serving,” she adds. “It was about half of SASHA’s entire budget that we lost, so we lost 15 staff, some part-time, some full-time.”

Due to the reduction in funding, the group went back to its previous scope of 25 beds.

Because SASHA still had the duplex, Koskewich says it opened an opportunity to move some of their clients around to do some much-needed renovations at its previously existing facilities.

Koskewich tells LNN that there is a demand for the services that SASHA offers. The group currently has six people on its waiting list but they do not have the operational funding to take them in.

The non-profit also receives regular inquiries from the psychiatric unit at Chinook Regional Hospital, asking if they have space for more clients. Koskewich says she is grateful for the advocacy that the hospital staff have done to try to get SASHA’s funding restored.

“A request was put in to Recovery Alberta to provide operational dollars for those additional beds to make it 35 and they told us that there were no more dollars available,” says Koskewich.

SASHA’s board of directors has written letters to members of the Government of Alberta to urge them to restore their funding. Anybody who would like to help can write to their local MLA or contact SASHA Board President Nicole Benson at board@sashasupports.org.

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