Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Chad Klassen

Shelter Space

Snowfall puts need for Kamloops shelter capacity in focus

Nov 12, 2019 | 5:24 PM

KAMLOOPS — With the first snowfall of the year, non-profits around the city are scrambling to get their shelter services organized for people on the streets.

The Mustard Seed New Life is still a couple of weeks away from welcoming people to its temporary emergency shelter. The Out of the Cold program still is in search of a new home for its shelter, but that only runs two days a week.

The City of Kamloops says even with housing like Spero House and The Branch and emergency shelters like Emerald Centre and The Mustard Seed, there are still about 50 beds needed to ensure no one is left on the street under these cold and wet conditions.

Michael lives out of his van, but he can’t afford the gas to heat it. He says the first snowfall of the year made for a frigid night for himself and many others.

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“The snow came yesterday and there were people here last night that were whimpering like pets left outside because it was so freakin’ cold and wet and terrible,” he said. “I think there are no places available.”

Image Credit: CFJC Today

Many of them took refuge from the cold at The Mustard Seed during the day. With construction happening in the former chapel area, the non-profit is still working on a plan to set up the emergency shelter in the dining room.

“We would remove the tables during the night, set up the mats. In the morning, we take the mats out, clean, and put the tables back,” said executive director of the Mustard Seed, Mario Barbo.

The temporary shelter, which they are hoping to turn into a permanent service in the next two years, will provide 30 beds starting Nov. 27.

“We also have an emergency plan if it’s too cold or we have the 31st, we are able to provide overflow, but we can’t stretch much,” said Barbo.

While people would have to leave by 8:00 a.m. every day, the Mustard Seed re-opens at 11:00 in the morning.

In the meantime, the Out of the Cold program is hoping to be up and running by then. It’s been delayed without a home. The first snowfall has only ramped up the urgency.

“Absolutely it does. I started last week and we’ve been looking for a place since I started because we knew this was coming, and now that it is finally here, yes, the urgency has definitely increased,” said new executive director of the Out of the Cold program Lena Cimmarrusti. “We’re going to try that much harder to get open.”

The program’s former home, St. Paul’s Cathedral, is too busy to host it. But Out of the Cold hopes to narrow down its new home by the end of the week.

“There’s more and more housing for homeless people in Kamloops, and I have to say that I’m really encouraged by how welcoming the citizens are here of it,” said Cimmarrusti, “but there are still some people who just don’t fit into any of those molds that they need to to get into these forms of housing and they have nowhere to go.”

For Michael and other homeless people, more shelter space can’t come soon enough.