St. B Street Links scrambles to open pop-up shelter as frigid weather approaches

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St. Boniface Street Links is feverishly planning its opening for a 24/7 warming shelter and safe space ahead of the coldest day Winnipeg will have seen so far this winter.

After some uncertainty about whether the organization would be allowed to operate a pop-up shelter at 604 St. Mary’s Rd. for a second year, executive director Marion Willis said staff is moving into the city-owned building.

After weeks of mild late fall and early winter conditions, temperatures are expected to drop to -25 C Sunday into Monday, with below-seasonal temperatures for the rest of the week, according to Natalie Hasell, a warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The last coldest day on record in the prior three months came on Dec. 18, when the mercury dipped to -20 C. Before that Nov. 27 recorded a temperature of -18 C, Hasell said.

After hearing of the upcoming weather, Willis and Street Links’ outreach team met at the building Wednesday to begin setting up.

“If the (occupancy permit) comes today we’ll kick it into high gear here to get this place open,” Willis said, after receiving word the place had passed all inspections.

In October the city all but gave the thumbs up to Street Links to occupy the space during the cold season after it announced it would send out a request for proposals for the building, which once served as the St. Vital municipal office and hall.

The building fell into disrepair in recent years and the city is planning to sell the property, but at least for the winter it will operate as pop-up warming space during extreme weather and safe space every other day of Street Links’ tenancy.

“This is the best Christmas gift,” Willis said.

The accessible entrance, washroom space and separate rooms for people experiencing mental-health issues made the space ideal for operation during last year’s frigid temperatures, Willis said, adding a come-as-you-are, stay-as-you’d-like model works better than most shelters in the city.

Some require occupants to leave during the afternoon to clean and prepare for evening services, including Siloam Mission and Main Street Project.

“This allows us to take every single person that comes through the door here, spend some time with them; they don’t have to get up and leave in the morning,”

“So when they exit the space it’s going to be our goal to make sure that most of them exit with some sort of housing and don’t have to return to homelessness,” Willis said.

For every 18 people that arrived at the pop-up shelter last year, a maximum of 12 left without stable housing, the executive director said.

Downtown, Siloam Mission is also prepping its pop-up shelter for the approaching cold conditions.

In November the city announced more than $260,000 in funds to support a temporary space at Siloam Mission during stretches of extreme cold. The shelter got its first use Dec. 8.

The centre saw between 50 and 80 people occupying the space, which is the expected turnout in the coming weeks until the end of winter, said communications co-ordinator Autumn Fehr.

“We consistently see shelters full every night and this is no different,” Fehr said.

To open the warming space, which is located on Siloam Mission property, it must feel like -10 C or colder outside, all other emergency shelters are consistently full and four staff are present.

A city spokesperson said the city will continue to offer leisure centres and libraries as warming spaces during operating hours, while the shelter at Siloam Mission is in operation from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Back on St. Mary’s Road, Willis said the new spaces will be a “learning experience” for how the pop-up model works and will change how Street Links does outreach, but argues the shelters are a Band-Aid solution.

“Sometimes I think that we spend too much time trying to figure out how to manage homelessness when, in fact, we should be doing a whole lot more work to end homelessness,” she said.

Emergency shelters elsewhere in the city that will be operating during the upcoming cold snap include N’Dinawemak, Main Street Project, Salvation Army and Just a Warm Sleep.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca