Gone are the days of Timmins City Hall issuing a cold weather alert any time the predicted overnight temperature is lower than minus-27 degrees. It mobilized an effort to get homeless people off the streets.
Not having them anymore is good news to Living Space executive director Jason Sereda. He says the shelter is building off the partnerships it had last winter with the city and the Native Friendship Centre, and is now in a better position to offer staff support.
“So what it’s enabled us to do is that we’re going to keep our main location at Living Space open as the primary emergency shelter location,” he outlines, “but we’re going to use the gym at the Friendship Centre just like we did last year as an overflow.”
Living Space will issue its own alerts to anyone who might need shelter, and still dispatch outreach workers.
“So our outreach workers will be maintaining their routes in the downtown core,” says Sereda. “If they see anybody who requires support, they’ll offer it and encourage them to come to the shelter. But the communication alert will just be one extra tool, just as a heads up that we are expecting lower temperatures.”