Yacht Club Shelter (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

WINTER SHELTERS

City of Kamloops outlines plan for winter shelters as overnight lows begin to drop

Oct 24, 2024 | 5:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops residents have woken up to frost on the windshield of their cars the past few mornings as overnight lows have dipped to around the freezing mark across the Tournament Capital. While snow has not yet hit the ground at the valley bottom, the City of Kamloops is outlining its cold weather response plan for the winter ahead. The plan features some major changes from years past, including no extreme weather shelter at the Kamloops Alliance Church.

Expansion of existing services is the plan this winter, with no formal extreme weather response shelter in the works for Kamloops.

“The same number of beds will still be provided in the community for extreme weather response — they will just be provided in the existing shelter system by expanding into overflow spaces with additional beds,” said Ty Helgason, Kamloops’ emergency preparedness manager.

The Alliance Church had been providing 30 beds on the North Shore and, while the new strategy does not include a shelter on the north side of the river, it does include transportation.

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“To make up for that, we are going to have muster points for folks who need to access shelter and warming spaces and gather and they will be transported by the envision shuttle to appropriate shelter and warming space,” said Helgason.

The church had been asked to provide a stop gap, but Diane Down stated they were unable to secure an operator for the short-term, on-call nature of the extreme weather shelter.

“We were very happy to be part of the first North Shore shelter that was ever offered. The Mustard Seed has some new constraints, and so they were unable to be our operator this year. After our conversations with the city and another potential operator, that was just deemed not possible this year,” stated Down, missional engagement pastor for Kamloops Alliance Church. “Without the shelter this year, we are going to have another conversation about what does it look like for KAC to be heavily involved in making a meaningful contribution in our community.”

The temporary measure was looked at as the city is still working on the North Shore access hub.

“Our Kamloops access hub leadership group is working toward securing and operationalizing a shelter and an access hub on the North Shore and they have given an anticipated opening date for December of 2024,” outlined Helgason.

The city is expecting to be near capacity for winter shelter beds this season as it builds upon the 190 spaces available in Kamloops year-round.

“We will have 20 more beds operating as a temporary winter shelter at the Yacht Club and Out of the Cold will be adding an additional 10 beds,” said Helgason. “As mentioned, that expansion of existing shelters will add another 25-to-35 beds and then we will have a warming space during cold weather responses available at Genesis Place.”

Already with temperatures dropping, the Yacht Club is seeing increased use.

“There is definitely a big need, and like I mentioned, we have seen capacity with some of our other services in the warmer months,” said Katie Hutchins, Kamloops Mustard Seed community and engagement manager. “I think that just shows when we get to those colder months, we are already seeing colder temperatures, but we know it’s just going to get colder. We are going to see an increase in need. We often think about shelter, but there is more beyond that, other services need to ramp up to meet that need.”

Shelter spaces in Kamloops will expand when temperatures are forecast below -5C — or if it’s 0 and there is a weather warning in place.