Millennium Library community hub's future in jeopardy

The Millennium Library is pictured in October 2023. (CTV News Winnipeg)

It’s looking unlikely a community hub at the Millennium Library will have its funding restored.

Funding for the library’s Community Connections service was cut at the end of 2024.

The space at the downtown library was run by library staff and crisis workers and connected the public to shelter and housing supports, social assistance, jobs, health care and more.

A motion before the city’s community services committee Friday called to have its funding restored, which would mean taking $628,000 from the upcoming budget.

Committee member Coun. Cindy Gillroy (Daniel McIntyre) called the hub an important community service.

“I’ve been there and I’ve witnessed it myself, so I wish that others had had the same opportunities to maybe see that, but I am worried if we don’t have this, we will have similar instances where we close our library again,” she said.

The library and its Community Connections hub closed in December 2022 following the fatal stabbing of a 28-year-old man. New security measures were introduced in the killing’s wake, including metal detectors and on-site police officers.

Committee chair Coun. Vivian Santos (Point Douglas) told the committee it would be hard to find money elsewhere in the budget to keep the hub open.

“We know money is tight right now; $628,000 to cut something else out is not what I want to hear,” she said.

Coun. Shawn Dobson (St. James) also questioned why social services fall to a city-funded library.

“The federal and the provincial government should be footing the bill for this, in my view,” he said.

The committee ultimately voted against sending the idea to the mayor’s executive policy committee for review.

Final budget recommendations will then be considered at another EPC meeting Friday, before council votes on the 2025 financial blueprint on Jan. 29.

- With files from CTV’s Jeff Keele