As record-cold temperatures hit Greater Victoria, those living on the street are left to bundle up, share tents and use small heaters to fend off the chill.
Niki Ottosen, who runs the BackPack Project delivering aid to unhoused people in Victoria, was in Victoria West Park Thursday night, where a handful of people were sheltering in tents as the temperature dipped to –7 C. “It was pretty grim,” Ottosen said.
One woman told Ottosen she had lost her tent in a street sweep in Rock Bay that morning. Ottosen gave the woman some blankets and a coat, but didn’t have a tent for her.
She suggested the woman go to a shelter at St. John the Divine Anglican Church in North Park, but the woman said she wasn’t able to walk that far.
Another woman in the park, Tammilyn Cardinal, invited the woman to share her tent for the night.
Ottosen was in the park after speaking to Victoria council, along with Cardinal, to ask that the city suspend its ban on sheltering in parks between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. immediately before and after extreme weather, and to appeal for warming centres to be set up.
The city didn’t specifically respond to a question about the sheltering ban, but said it opened a warming centre at the Cook Street Village Activity Centre Friday that will stay open day and night as part of the extreme weather response and while shelters are at capacity.
City spokesperson Colleen Mycroft said the city’s primary focus during extreme weather is ensuring people living outside are safe.
Meanwhile, Cardinal, 43, was trying to stay warm under a pile of wet blankets Friday in Vic West Park as biting winds battered her tent. Heavy rain earlier in the week had flooded her tent, and with no way to dry her blankets and mattresses, everything remained damp.
Cardinal said she wasn’t looking for a shelter space, because they fill up quickly and she couldn’t risk leaving her belongings behind.
“If I leave, city bylaw could come and just take all of our stuff,” she said — a night indoors could leave her without any way to stay warm afterward.
While the frigid conditions are challenging, she said the most difficult part of her experience is the judgment she feels when she goes into any stores nearby.
In the city’s statement, Mycroft said “the highest level of discretion” will be used by bylaw officers in deciding whether to impound material during the cold snap. Bylaw officers will not leave someone without shelter during extreme weather, she said. “In fact, they will do everything in their power to ensure their basic health and safety needs are met by providing them with the necessities of life, connecting them to outreach services and most importantly facilitating their relocation to an indoor space.”
Bylaw officers regularly give out warming supplies such as hand warmers, tents, sleeping bags and extra clothing, she said.
Frank Woods, executive director of the Justice Van Society, has spent the past six years on the streets handing out warm clothing and food three times a week. He said he has never given out so many tuques, scarves, sleeping bags and other items to keep warm as he did Thursday night.
He said he saw about 40 people in the Rock Bay area over the course of the evening. That’s fewer than he normally serves and he hopes that’s because more people had found shelter indoors. “It was less people we served, but the people we served were desperate,” he said.
Street ambassadors with SOLID Outreach were handing out small, handmade heaters meant to be used in tents, said Dave Keeler, a SOLID street ambassador. The heaters are designed to heat up a terracotta pot and extinguish their flame when tipped over.
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