With temperatures forecast to drop below freezing this weekend, authorities have opened extreme-weather shelter spaces and are considering opening warming centres for those who are sheltering outside.
Victoria emergency program coordinator Tanya Seal-Jones said she has notified city auxiliary staff who run the centres of a possible opening tonight, though the hours are still uncertain.
The extreme-weather shelter at the Salvation Army Addictions and Rehabilitation Centre on Johnson Street has already been in operation for two nights in a row, and the third day is usually when it fills up, she said.
The city has agreements with five locations — Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, Fernwood Community Centre, the Little Fernwood building, Victoria Curling Club and Cook Street Village Activity Centre — that can act as warming centres in a pinch when shelters fill up or temperatures go below -4 C.
The Cook Street Village Activity Centre will be open this weekend if the city’s extreme-weather protocol is activated, Seal-Jones said, adding that it will be the first time for the protocols to be activated this winter if that comes to pass.
In the past, more extreme-weather shelters were available, but the COVID鈥�19 pandemic brought an end to many of those programs.
Brenda Wadey, housing program manager at the Salvation Army Addictions and Rehabilitation Centre, said there were three other places in Victoria operating extreme-weather shelters when she took over coordinating the Salvation Army’s program three years ago.
Today, two such shelters remain in the capital region — the Salvation Army location on Johnson Street and another in Sooke.
The lack of extreme-weather shelter spaces is something Victoria Coun. Dave Thompson is keen to fix.
On Friday, a few hours before the space was set to be converted into a sleeping area for 30, about two dozen elected officials and municipal staff from across the capital region convened at the Salvation Army chapel and dining room at Thompson’s request to discuss what would be needed to bring extreme-weather shelters and warming centres to other municipalities.
The mayors of Oak Bay and Saanich attended, along with councillors representing communities from Langford to Sidney.
Representatives from sa国际传媒 Housing, the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, Island Health, the City of Victoria and Salvation Army staff quickly went through a raft of presentations and regulations that broke down the differences between an extreme-weather shelter and a warming centre, their funding differences and the difficulties in keeping the centres running.
Wadey said the biggest challenge is in finding staff who are willing to work the irregular 12.5-hour shifts. “You’re meeting with individuals, helping them make sure they get settled in for the night, you’re making sure that everybody gets something to eat.”
Sometimes, a shift may just involve playing cards with the people who have come in for the night, she said.
Other times, it’ll involve calling the police because someone has become a threat to others, Wadey said, though she emphasized there are rarely incidents because most of the people who come in are just looking for a place to stay out of the weather and to get some sleep.
The extreme-weather shelter program is one of the most most necessary programs at Salvation Army, Wadey said.
Every winter, people in Victoria die on the streets because they were outside in extreme weather, Wadey said. “Every one of them needed a quiet, safe space to get out of the cold.”
On some nights, there are more people than mats available. From October 2023 to April 2024, Salvation army hosted about 630 people on the 27 nights that the extreme-weather shelter was active, she said.
The Salvation Army extreme-weather shelter has been activated 10 times so far since October, Wadey said.
Extreme-weather shelters are only activated in the capital region when temperatures drop below 3 C or if there are additional weather warnings on top of low temperatures.
Victoria is the only capital region jurisdiction that operates warming centres in the event of cold weather emergencies.
Operating expenses for warming centres are paid for through the Ministry of Emergency Management, but the city foots the bill for training as well as the pay for program coordinators like Seal-Jones, who have other responsibilities.
Thompson said in a recent interview that homeless populations exist in most municipalities in the capital region. “We’d like to see our colleagues in other cities also taking care of their folks [and] not just sending them to Victoria.”
The District of Saanich was singled out by members of Victoria city council in November as a neighbouring municipality that could introduce shelter supports for homeless people in extreme weather.
Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock told the sa国际传媒 on Friday that he’s “cautiously optimistic” that a proposed extreme-weather shelter at Broad View United Church on St. Aidan’s Street could become operational this winter, though he didn’t provide a date.
Saanich has just 25 shelter beds provided by the Victoria Native Friendship Centre in the Burnside and Tillicum area, in partnership with sa国际传媒 Housing, though shelter capacity has gone up in the past to 32 to account for additional people looking for shelter during extreme weather.
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
