More emergency shelter beds could be made available during the colder months at Coquitlam’s permanent homeless shelter, according to the facility’s operator, Rain City Housing.
Currently, 3030 Gordon Ave. has 30 shelter beds and 30 transitional units that operate year-round. During extreme weather events, however, like the cold snap that gripped the region last winter, the facility has the capability of opening up 30 more beds in a dorm room.
But Rain City’s co-executive director, Catherine Hume, told Coquitlam council Monday more funding from BC Housing may allow it to open the emergency shelter daily from late fall to early spring. She said the changes would allow shelter users to remain in the building during the day, which would avoid some of the issues that arose last year with people leaving the facility in the morning and returning at night.
“The coming and going will diminish,” she said, later adding: “Our intent was to mitigate some of the impacts from people being asked to leave, then asked to come back.”
News of the expansion received a tepid response from some at the council table.
Coun. Terry O’Neill told Hume the proposed changes significantly alter what the community was promised when council approved the shelter.
“For half the year, you are going to have 60 emergency beds when the community was promised 30 emergency beds,” he said. “The facility does not operate in isolation from the community it is situated in… and I think this is a significant change you have outlined here.”
Hume responded by noting that new funding would have to accompany any expansion of capacity to give operators the resources necessary to deal with the increase in shelter users.
She said a conversation would have to occur between the city, BC Housing and Rain City before changes could move ahead at 3030 Gordon.
Data presented to Coquitlam council Monday show that the shelter has had some success at getting people into permanent housing. Of the people who have used the facility since it opened in December 2015, 38% have gone on to find housing while 22% went into treatment or detox and 16% moved into transitional housing. The whereabouts of 14% are unknown while 7% ended up at a different shelter and 3% ended up in jail.
According to the shelter statistics, 244 people have taken advantage of the facility, 159 men and 80 women. Most are between the age of 30 and 50 (44%) while 41% are over 50 and 15% are under 30.
“It is a slightly older population than we have anticipated,” Hume told council.
She also noted that a majority of the shelter users state they are from the Tri-Cities (46%) while 20% said they were from Coquitlam and 11% said PoCo.
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