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Emergency winter shelters prepare to open in downtown Kelowna

Local homelessness charities in Kelowna, B.C., are acting quickly to open two emergency winter shelters downtown earlier than last year before freezing temperatures return to the area.

Starting Monday, Metro Community will reopen the 39-bed Welcome Inn at 1265 Ellis St., while the brand new Doyle Avenue Shelter — housed in the Daily Courier's former office building at 550 Doyle Ave. — will offer around another 40 beds.

Temporary shelter spaces will be available 24/7 until March 31, according to nonprofit Central Okanagan Journey Home Society.

Gospel Mission is one of the nonprofits that has had to turn unhoused people away from its permanent shelter due to COVID-19 physical distancing requirements, even amid the frigid weather last week.

The new 30,000-sq. ft. Doyle Avenue Shelter, which includes facilities such as showers, toilets, hygiene centres and laundry rooms, should help address this, Gospel Mission executive director Carmen Rempel said.

"The spaces are actually incredible — big warehouse-type spaces where we can put in these pod units so that everybody is socially distanced," Rempel told Sarah Penton, host of CBC's Radio West.

Winston Szeto/CBC
Winston Szeto/CBC

The Gospel Mission's permanent shelter on Leon Avenue will continue to accommodate 60 people, although that number is down from the 90 beds offered before the pandemic.

"In years past when the weather got cold, we would be throwing mats on the ground, we'd be shuffling bunk beds and every spare corner of space," Rempel said.

"But this year, because of COVID, we have a certain spacing that we have to provide between the beds, so I have a storage unit filled with mattresses and beds."

Rempel says both the Welcome Inn and Doyle Avenue emergency winter shelters won't reject guests who have substance use issues. The nonprofits will keep records to ensure people don't occupy spaces at both shelters.

Photo by Jason Siebenga
Photo by Jason Siebenga

Gospel Mission is hiring night-time staff for the Doyle Avenue Shelter, which is located the building formerly used by the Daily Courier newspaper. The media company vacated it several weeks ago.

The building is slated for demolition next spring. Mission Group and UBC Properties Trust, the property co-owners, plan to build a downtown extension of University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus on the site, as well as residential units and commercial offices.

It makes sense to lend the building as a temporary shelter before the building was torn down, says UBC Okanagan's principal Lesley Cormack.

"This is not a country where you can be out on the street in the winter, especially with the pandemic," she said. "The university has always wanted to work for the betterment of the whole community, including those who are less fortunate."

There are at least 297 unhoused people in Kelowna, according to the latest report by the charitable Central Okanagan Foundation.