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PRE-GAME CHEER: Players and coaching staff for the Millionaires do a team cheer before their game against the Canucks in the western regional blind hockey tournament hosted at Burnaby’s Bill Copeland arena. These visually impaired players use a special puck that has a bell inside of it and need incredible spatial awareness during games. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER
City scrambling to finally add winter warming centres Kelvin Gawley
kgawley@burnabynow.com
Within a matter of weeks, the City of Burnaby could finally have warming centres and a winter shelter for homeless people, after years of advocacy that fell on the deaf ears of the city’s former mayor. “We’re overjoyed,” said Karen O’ Shannecary, with Burnaby’s Society to End Homelessness. “Homelessness is deadly ... and to be able to look forward to the opening of a shelter or a
warming centre – anything to help people stay alive and get basic needs met – is just incredibly awesome news.” The society, formerly the Burnaby Task Force on Homelessness, has pushed for these life-saving facilities since 2005, O’Shannecary said, but it took October’s election of Mayor Mike Hurley for shelters to appear on the agenda. On Monday, city council unanimously passed a motion directing staff to move forward with a plan to establish a warming cen-
tre in each of the city’s four quadrants and a temporary emergency shelter as soon as possible. Exact locations have not been set. “It’s not humane to leave people out in these kinds of conditions,” said Coun. Pietro Calendino after introducing the motion while an hours-long downpour pelted the windows of council chambers. In other cities (including Vancouver), warming centres are opened during cold and wet weather.They typically provide hot food and
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a space to warm up and get dry.They sometimes include temporary overnight accommodation. Temporary emergency shelters are generally operated by a non-profit with money from B.C. Housing 24/7 during the winter months. “These facilities offer overnight beds, food, washrooms and some common space for residents of the shelter,” a City of Burnaby staff report states. Since 2005, Burnaby has had an extreme weather shelter open at West-
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minster Bible Chapel on Sixth Street (with Burnaby Alliance Church serving as a backup) on the coldest and wettest nights. But that shelter has only been open when temperatures drop below freezing or during prolonged inclement weather. Last year, the extreme weather shelter was open 51 nights, with an average of eight people each night, according to the city. During the harsh winter of 201617, the shelter was open for a record 76 nights, provid-
ing a total of 709 bed-nights to the city’s most vulnerable residents. But the inconsistency of that shelter failed to serve the needs of many of Burnaby’s homeless, O’Shannecary said. It could be open one night, when temperatures hovered around -2 C, but closed the next if the thermometer rose to 2 C, she said. That left people at the risk of pneumonia, she said. Continued on page 5
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