Camps sprout as shelter beds close
Advocates for the homeless say closure of seasonal spaces ramps up pressure
Small homeless camps such as the tarped lean-to at the entrance to Cuthbert Holmes Park near Burnside Road West this week will pop up more often in the region as shelters reduce beds and hours until next fall, advocates for the homeless say.
“Saanich has no shelter beds. So if people camp here and there’s nowhere else for them to go, what are police supposed to do?” said Rob Wickson, president of the Gorge Tillicum Community Association.
“We’ve been saying for some time [that] Saanich needs to address this and develop a strategy to help people in these situations,” added Wickson, noting two homeless campers died in Saanich parks in the past year and more are using the parks to shelter each year.
Grant McKenzie of Our Place Society said now that the seasonal emergency shelter program is done for the year, Our Place will have 50 fewer beds to offer the homeless in bad weather. The Extreme Weather Protocol can add up to 180 shelter beds around town.
At the 60-mat night shelter at First Metropolitan Church on Quadra Street, also operated by Our Place, there are waitlists every night, said McKenzie. “People can reserve if they stayed the night before, so it’s not like a lot of spaces open up.”
Our Place also offers a daytime dropin centre with meals, laundry, Internet, overdose prevention and other services. A city grant that helped the facility stay open until 9 p.m. has run out, so the centre now closes at 6 p.m.
“We’re already seeing more people coming from outdoors who sleep in the drop-in in the day,” McKenzie said.
About noon on Friday, more than a dozen people were stretched across chairs with blankets and huddled sleeping in the space that doubles as a cafeteria.
Small camps were set up on the grassy meridians outside the building along Pandora Avenue, with people sleeping or storing belongings.
McKenzie said many of the people sleeping in parks are young. “That’s a problem in the city. There are not many places for youth, especially ones that are low-barrier,” he said, referring to places that accept those who use drugs and alcohol. Our Place only accepts adults older than 19.
McKenzie said that when My Place, a transitional shelter in the old Boys and Girls Club on Yates Street, closes in May, he hopes it might be used as a day shelter for the city’s homeless.
“It’s just an idea at this point,” he said, noting the current residents will be placed in other housing.
Cool Aid Society has also closed its 40bed seasonal shelter at the Downtown Activity Centre on Pandora Avenue. Chief executive officer Kathy Stinson said the year-round shelters at Rock Bay Landing and Sandy Merriman House are operating over capacity.
“Summer gets busier and we see more people around the outside of our buildings,” she said. “Our focus is on getting more housing for people. That’s what we need.”