Safety at warming centres top of mind during special meeting
Park board commissioners and community members discussed at length Thursday whether or not to continue operating overnight cold-weather shelters that had been set up at Vancouver community centres during the region’s recent cold snap.
“We’re recognizing the unique nature of these facilities and the fact that we’ve got a lot of user groups in there and that we’re putting some user groups together that are not necessarily complementary and it’s creating concerns,” said Vancouver park board commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung, who called the special meeting in order to bring forward a motion to immediately suspend the warming-centre trial program.
The meeting was meant to address safety concerns that arose this week after a child found a discarded needle inside a washroom Monday at Creekside Community Centre.
Creekside was one of three park board facilities — the other two were Britannia and West End — that began staying open overnight to host warming centres for the homeless and those with nowhere else to go during recent sub-zero temperatures that hit the city in late December. After Creekside’s warming centre was closed Monday, Carnegie Community Centre in the Downtown Eastside was opened as a replacement. West End was also closed Wednesday.
No equipment or bedding is provided to any of the centres hosting overnight warming shelters.
More than 20 speakers were signed up to address the park board Thursday. The vote wasn’t conducted before deadline.
NDP MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert was among those who had signed up to speak on the motion. He questioned Kirby-Yung’s motivation for the motion and whether she had proper staff reports and evidence to support the motion’s safety concerns.
He also noted he volunteered Monday evening at the West End warming centre and didn’t witness any safety concerns or violent incidents matching those Kirby-Yung had described.
Commissioner Erin Shum also asked whether Kirby-Yung had visited any of the warming shelters while they were in operation overnight, to which Kirby-Tung said she hadn’t. That reply was met by laughs and jeers from the audience.
Kirby-Yung acknowledged the city’s homelessness crisis is something all city partners need to work on together, but noted the park board has a mandate in maintaining its recreational services.
Kirby-Yung’s motion called for the suspension of the temporary warming shelters at parks facilities and any similar program in the future include the park board in the planning process. The motion also included a call for proper resources, training and support for community centre staff in order to operate the warming shelters overnight.
“They’re recreational specialists, they’re not social workers,” said Kirby-Yung. “What I’m essentially hearing from West End staff right now, for example, is they’re nervous and they’re really scared and they don’t feel equipped to deal with the situation that they’re being put in.”