HELP YOUR NEIGHBOUR: Give at RapidReliefFund.ca. Cowichan Valley shelters the homeless

An influx of money to the Cowichan Valley from the Rapid Relief Fund is setting the stage for getting people out of tents and other shelters and into more secure housing.

A disbursement of $220,000 from the fund was announced a week and a half ago, and has now been bolstered by $172,000 from B.C. Housing.

The money will pay for Phase 1 of a community-emergency response overseen by the COVID-19 Vulnerable Population Cowichan Task Force.

Phase 2, which begins June 30, has a goal of providing permanent and supported-housing options.

John Horn, of the Cowichan

Housing Association, who chairs the task force, said funds will first be used to create temporary accommodation for the homeless.

That includes services such as peer supports, site maintenance, cleaning, laundry, security, portable washrooms and handwashing stations.

“This supports the provincial mandate to provide shelter-inplace options in order to adhere to social-distancing guidelines and keep people safe,” Horn said.

Housing will come in a variety of forms, including “familycluster” tenting sites limited to 12 people.

Money from the Rapid Relief Fund has also allowed the task force to include hotel rooms in the initiative, and to have more funding for such essentials as outreach workers and food.

Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples said the fund has helped unite the more than 17 groups working on the community effort.

“Because of the funding, the community has been able to come together to have conversations to decide where the funding is needed.

“Everybody’s working really closely together to make sure that the needs are being met in the community for a broad variety of people — from extraordinarily vulnerable people to people who need to have food to feed their families.

“They may have a house over their head and be secure that way, but they don’t have enough to purchase food.”