WOLF WARNINGS PAGE 5
LEST WE FORGET
KING JAMES REIGNS PAGE 17
SECTION B
Nicola Valley’s News Voice Since 1905
merrittherald.com
MERRITT HERALD bcclassified.com
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2013 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
Cold weather shelter opens up
RCMP Const. Tracy Dunsmore and Keri Cooke of the Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society at the extreme weather response shelter located at 1937 Quilchena Ave., which opened for the first time last weekend. The shelter will open on nights zero and below this month, and starting on Dec. 1 will be open every night of the week. Michael Potestio/Herald
By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
The Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society’s cold weather shelter is once again ready to open its doors to the public, but weather conditions will determine which nights it’s open this month. The extreme weather response shelter will be open seven days a week from December through February, but in November and March, the temperature will dictate which days it’s open. On days it’s fore-
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casted to be above zero, the shelter won’t be open, operator Keri Cooke said. The shelter opened its doors for the first time this season last weekend. “We find that November tends to be one of the colder months,” Tracy Dunsmore of the Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society said. The shelter always has at least two people working overnight and is open between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. The decision to open the shelter needs to be made by 10 a.m. each day, so if the
weather is forecasted to be cold enough, they will activate the shelter. This allows members of the society some time to prepare the shelter for visitors and get the word out to organizations and the police that it will be open. Dunsmore said the shelter can open its doors at the last minute and they would call in some shift captains to run the shelter as well as some volunteers. Each winter, the shelter is a place for people who are homeless or at risk of being homeless to escape
the elements, Cooke said, although it’s not limited to homeless people. Dunsmore said people from a variety of situations access the shelter, from those who need a place to stay after their car breaks down on the highway to people dealing with domestic violence situations to those who are intoxicated but live a considerable distance from Merritt and can’t find a way home. “Rather than sleeping in an alley or under a bridge or something, then they can access the shelter to get
out of the extreme cold,” Dunsmore said. Dunsmore said the most people they had in one night last year was 13. The Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society was able to keep the same building from last year and will once again be located at 1937 Quilchena Ave. “It’s pretty much set up and ready to go now,” Dunsmore said, adding the beds are ready and they will be stocking up on some food, though they are not required to supply it. Dunsmore said most of
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that food is donated to them from local stores and residents. The furniture in the shelter is also donated. “The community’s been great. This is the fifth year that we’ve had some sort of a shelter running, not necessarily the same type of program, but some form of shelter running,” Dunsmore said. Last year, the extreme weather response shelter was only open for four months from December to the end of March.
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