Twelve additional spaces at People’s Place emergency shelter will open on Nov. 1 to increase housing for the Red Deer’s homeless this winter.
“That’s as best a measure we can implement right now. We believe there is still going to be folks who won’t be able to be accommodated,” said Tricia Haggarty-Roberts, assistant executive director with Safe Harbour, on Wednesday.
She said people are regularly turned away at People’s Place because its 23 beds are full. The same is true for the Mats overnight shelter where there are 20 mats for adults under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
In late September, Central Alberta’s Safe Harbour Society for Health and Housing announced it could not operate Winter Inn, its cold-weather overnight shelter program, as it did not get its usual funding from the city’s Community Housing Advisory Board to run the program.
In past years, Winter Inn has typically operated from November to April with about $110,000 in provincial funding that is allocated by the advisory board.
Last season, 326 different people used Winter Inn, located on the main floor of Loaves and Fishes, at 6002 54th Ave., in partnership with Safe Harbour.
Haggarty-Roberts said the Community Housing Advisory Board has allowed Safe Harbour to keep $22,000 in surplus funds and the province has given Safe Harbour permission to use that money to buy bunk beds to replace and increase the number of beds at People’s Place from 23 to 35.
Adding more than 12 beds would require more staff and there are no new dollars for staff, she said.
“The bunk beds should be arriving sometime late next week.”
Safe Harbour runs People’s Place in the basement of Loaves and Fishes.
She said most of the immediate neighbours have been notified of the plan, which includes more Safe Harbour staff using office space at People’s Place to increase staff presence at the site.
Haggarty-Roberts said the province considers the increase in beds to be a temporary measure for the winter. But Safe Harbour believes the demand for beds will be so strong that a case could be made to maintain all 35 beds.
Social agencies in the community, including the City of Red Deer, are looking at other shelter options if the demand for beds is exceeded this winter at People’s Place and Safe Harbour’s Mats overnight shelter, located at 5246 53rd Ave.
“Certainly we will be part of the conversation, but it’s not just a Safe Harbour issue,” Haggarty-Roberts said.
Scott Cameron, the city’s social planning manager, said the community is looking at a number of options to assist the homeless this winter when necessary.
“I think one of the challenges as we move into the winter is that numbers continue to fluctuate so the approach we have taken this year is multi-pronged,” Cameron said.
“We’re trying to make the best use of existing resources and not necessarily create a whole bunch of new stuff, but work with what the community already has in place.”
He said the focus has shifted over the years to find more permanent housing solutions for the homeless and for shelter needs to be shorter in duration.
“That’s not to say emergencies don’t happen and short-term sheltering is part of that solution,” Cameron said.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com