‘It’s really hard to turn away people’: Kamloops shelters back to full capacity amid cold snap

Feb 23, 2023 | 3:20 PM

KAMLOOPS — Another visit from Jack Frost this week has Kamloops cold weather shelters bursting at the seams.

Nyashya Manyanye is the operations director for The Mustard Seed Kamloops, an organization that operates four overnight shelters in the city, including an extreme weather space at the Kamloops Alliance Church on Fortune Drive.

He says the four shelters, offering more than 80 beds, have been at about 98 per cent capacity this week.

“Last night (at Kamloops Alliance Church), we were at full capacity and we actually had three people in the overflow,” Manyanye told CFJC Today Thursday (Feb. 23). “When you think about it, if the extreme weather shelter was not there, where were these people going to be sleeping?”

Environment Canada is calling for a low temperature of -17 C Thursday night, with the windchill potentially reaching -25 C.

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With those temperatures, finding a warm place to sleep becomes a life-and-death endeavour.

“We are seeing a lot of people coming, but then we don’t have enough beds. It’s really hard to turn away people in this kind of extreme weather,” said Manyanye. “That alone is very stressful for our frontline people — to turn people away when we are at full capacity.”

The Mustard Seed has partnered with other organizations, including the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Envision program, to find people preparing to spend the night outdoors and transport them to shelter.

Even so, Manyanye says the current situation amounts to a patchwork of services and Kamloops is desperate for a more stable, long-term solution.

by James Peters

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‘It’s really hard to turn away people’: Kamloops shelters back to full capacity amid cold snap

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