CMHA Central will be hosting a forum on youth homelessness on Friday, May 19th at Stride Place.

Canadian Mental Health Association Central Region Executive Director Jordan Friesen explains the forum will focus on discussing the issue of homelessness in Portage la Prairie among young people ages 16 to 30, as well as potential solutions to the problem.

"Anecdotally I can tell you that we have a problem because we have a lot of people coming into our office in downtown Portage looking for housing and saying they're homeless. We have three emergency suites that are almost consistently full. But more than that, it's hard really quantify the issue because there aren't a lot of agencies that keep really good data about it."

Representatives from diverse organisations will be in attendance at the event and Friesen notes part of the purpose of the forum is to discuss with other agencies what the issue of homelessness looks like in Portage.

He explains why the CMHA is involved with this issue.

"Mental health issues and homelessness are interconnected. We know that someone with a mental health condition could have difficulty maintaining housing but we also know that lack of quality, safe, affordable housing has a really negative impact on one's mental health and at CMHA Central we view housing as the foundation for recovery from mental illness."

The forum will begin at 9:30 a.m. and will last about two and a half hours.