40 moving from church shelter to transitional housing

A group of 40 people sleeping on mats in a First Metropolitan Church shelter in Victoria will be one step closer to permanent housing as they move into My Place transitional housing.

Grant McKenzie, spokesman for the Our Place Society, which will operate the shelter and provide a cook, got the keys to the building on Nov. 27.

“Our job will be to transition them into housing,” McKenzie said. Our Place will work with organizations such as Pacifica Housing and the Victoria Cool Aid Society to make that happen.

B.C. Housing has leased the former Boys and Girls Club at 1240 Yates St. for six months. It has a kitchen, shower facilities and room for storage. The building is located across Yates Street from Central Middle School.

Eight soon-to-be tenants were paid and fed for their work, scrubbing the facility from top to bottom, McKenzie said.

About 18 staff — 13 newly hired outreach workers and five from other facilities — were trained. They will provide counselling and help residents access medical, mental-health and housing and employment insurance services, McKenzie said. My Place will be staffed around the clock, he added.

The residents have been sleeping at First Metropolitan Church. They are able to go inside at 7:30 p.m. At 6 a.m., they must leave and take their belongings with them. There are no showers or kitchens, McKenzie said.

The church shelter has been full since it opened and turns away people every night — about 25 on a single night last week. With 40 people moving to My Place, 40 spots will open up at First Metropolitan, which should mean that fewer people will be turned away, McKenzie said.

“Those who come regularly have a guaranteed space. So we had a community of 60 people coming every night,” he said.

My Place will be drug- and alcohol-free and quiet at night.

“The big thing we have found is that most people who end up on the street don’t usually end up there because of addiction, they end up on the street for a period of time and they get into addiction,” McKenzie said.

Cots with cubicle-like walls for privacy will be provided in a gymnasium, along with an open space for socializing.

Last winter, the building hosted people who had been living at the tent city on the courthouse lawn, but it has been empty since the spring.

When it was operating, there was round-the-clock security and regular garbage pickup, and residents built positive connections with the school community.

Because of that, the reopening is going ahead without major opposition, McKenzie said.