Nowhere to go for city’s homeless
Out of the Heat ends Saturday
As the Out of the Heat program winds down for the season, the hundreds of people who have relied on the service during the summer months will have nowhere to go until Out of the Cold starts Nov. 1.
Many of them will have no choice but to pitch tents in parks and remote areas of the city, once the Out of the Heat program ends for the season on Saturday, said program board member Maria Bonadio.
“A lot of people are looking for tents to kind of hunker down until Out of the Cold starts,” she said. “They’re looking for sleeping bags and tents.”
In the meantime, however, she said a program is being launched that may help fill the gap in service for a growing homeless population.
Bonadio said the 45 volunteers who ran the Out of the Heat program at St. George’s Anglican Church in July and August helped provide resources, meals and a relatively comfortable, safe place to stay to almost twice the number of people who used the program in its inaugural season last year.
In July alone, 249 individuals spent their nights staying with the program for a total of 1,327 stays. That’s almost on par with the total number of people who used the program throughout the entire 2018 season.
“We have provided many, many people with food and shelter and comfort and resources throughout the two months. The volunteers were just phenomenal,” Bonadio said.
Some nights, volunteers said they were so busy they had to turn people away when the number of visitors exceeded fire code regulations. But even then, the excess visitors were invited to stay in the church courtyard where volunteers could at least offer them a blanket and something to eat, she said.
“Where are they going to go? There’s a great need. We need another permanent shelter.”
Rev. William DeGuire isn’t about to wait until the Out of the Cold program relaunches to help the people he refers to as his
“street family.”
DeGuire has started a program called Working the Streets that includes teams of outreach workers who will search for homeless people and offer them the help they need as the nights grow longer and colder in coming months.
The program, run out of an office at 211 Queenston St. that DeGuire spent the past two months renovating, will offer resources as well as extensive training for volunteer outreach workers.
While DeGuire said the initiative may help fill the gap between the two shelter programs, he said he was driven by his faith and inspired by the plight of people living in remote parts of the city.
“The inspiration really for me is getting to the guys that are out in the bush and out along the railway tracks and to get them into emergency shelters. That’s my first goal,” he said. “It’s to meet them right where they are at and build up relationships.”
He said he began working towards developing the program about three years ago, hoping to reach out to people who for various reasons will not seek assistance at homeless shelters.
DeGuire said each of the volunteers will undergo training to work with people in need in a professional manner, before working in the community to provide warm clothing, sleeping bags, tents, toiletries and other items, as well as freshly prepared hot meals.
He said training is a vital part of the program.
“A lot of people know the word empathy, but you really have to know in your heart what it is,” said DeGuire, who has been an outreach worker since 1995.
He is appealing for donations, particularly warm women’s clothing. He can be reached via email at goodnewsworship@live.ca.
Bonadio called DeGuire’s initiative encouraging, knowing she will have an opportunity to continue helping people in need.
Still, she said saying goodbye to the people helped during the summer will be “bittersweet.”
“It’s going to be sad. We’ve connected with the clients and they’ve connected with us.”