Out of the Cold has a new home
The hot meal and a warm bed part is still the same
By the time you settled into bed Sunday under a warm blanket, the Out of the Cold program in St. Catharines was up and running.
“We are starting again on Sunday night,” said Susan Venditti, executive director of Start Me Up Niagara. “The dinners will be held in seven different locations, as they were last year. The overnight this year will be at Westminster United Church.”
That’s a change from 2018 when historic Robertson Hall at 85 Church St. served as the overnight shelter for Out of the Cold three nights a week. The overnight program then rotated among downtown churches for the other four nights, including Silver Spire United to Queen Street Baptist and St. Barnabas Anglican as well as Knox Presbyterian Church.
“Last year, we decided to separate the suppers from the overnights because it solves a lot of logistical problems,” Venditti said. “It is challenging to turn a dining room into a bedroom, so that transition was always tough.
“We reduced the number last year with the thought we would go to one site this year, and we did.”
Venditti said centralizing the overnights at Westminster United makes a lot of sense.
“Anyone that relies on us, such as the hospital and the police, they know exactly where we are every night now, so it reduces confusion.
“It simplifies the organization. We had to have three or four of everything. Our efficiency is improved, and that allows us to work more closely with the people staying the night.”
The warm meal, a staple of Out of the Cold since it started in the city in 1996, will still rotate among the churches with a 6 p.m. start time.
The rotation includes the Knights of Columbus on Church St. (Sunday); Silver Spire United on St. Paul Street (Monday); Cathedral of St. Catherine on Lyman St. (Tuesday); St. George Anglican on Church St. (Wednesday); St. Alfred Roman Catholic on Vine St. (Thursday), Knox Presbyterian on Church St. (Friday) and Queen Street Baptist (Saturday).
The shelter at Westminster United is open from 8 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. The program will run until March 31.
“The reason for Out of the Cold hasn’t changed,” Venditti said. “It’s simple. It’s too cold to sleep outside in Canada. We started as a grassroots response to homelessness.
“As we got into it, we learned
that it is about isolation and not knowing what community resources there are.
“There is more to it, even though the basic principals still welcome a person and provide a meal, with or without a warm stay. About one-third usually go on to stay overnight.”
The basics are still the same, Venditti said, and include efforts to tackle the problem of getting clients into housing.
There is certainly no shortage of clients. At Westminster, the number of beds has increased from 35 to about 50. That is in keeping with the trends.
In the 2018-19 season, out of the cold provided shelter to 7,864 people, an increase from about 4,000 a year in 2017-18. And that number was up significantly from the previous year.
“If you look at the stats of the number of visits to the emergency room with drug overdoses, in the 2016-17 year, you see the number isn’t good, but it wasn’t ridiculous,” Venditti said.
“The numbers were the same with Out of the Cold. We had been going up about two or three per cent per year.
“Then, in 2017-18, the hospital and Out of the Cold saw tremendous increases in the number of people requiring assistance. And what have we been talking about over the past two years? Opioids — that’s the reason.”
Venditti said the drug had changed how Out of the Cold serves clients.
“There are different symptoms,” she said. “It takes a different set of skills, and that is another reason we centralized the location. We can diffuse situations and keep people inside, which is the goal.”