Centres that serve Ottawa’s homeless have been ramping up their efforts in response to this winter’s particularly cold, snowy and icy weather.
As temperatures drop, an increasing number of homeless people are looking to local charitable services for shelter and assistance.
One of the places offering help to Ottawa’s homeless is Centre 507 on Bank Street in Centretown, where homeless people can drop in for six afternoons and three evenings per week. This winter, there has been a discernibly increased demand for the centre’s services.
“We do get more people, but I think the big difference we notice is people stay longer,” says Centre 507’s executive director Richard LeBlanc. “January is always our busiest month of the year.”
Ottawa Public Health has already issued six frostbite advisories and three frostbite warnings this winter. As people try to escape these dangerous conditions, places like Centre 507 have to provide more resources, such as food and clothing. According to LeBlanc, a busy January is when December’s Christmas donations come in handy.
“We go through more resources for sure,” says LeBlanc. “It is our busiest time, but at the same time it’s also the end of our best time for donations.”
LeBlanc says the Ottawa winter also means Centre 507’s staff has to work harder.
“People are staying longer, so we have less down time,” says LeBlanc. “We’re more active.”
Centre 507 does not offer overnight shelter, so another challenge it faces in the winter is helping the homeless find somewhere to stay when drop-in hours are over.
“We really try to make sure everyone’s going somewhere,” says LeBlanc. “We don’t kick anybody out into the cold. We try to give them options to keep warm and be safe.”
Most centres that serve the homeless in Ottawa use street outreach teams to find people who are outside in dangerously cold weather and have nowhere to go. Operation Come Home is a support centre for homeless and at-risk youth, and for its outreach team, bitter temperatures make searching for the homeless more difficult.
“They’re getting harder to find if they are staying on the streets overnight,” says Operation Come Home’s outreach co-ordinator Katie Sanders.
According to Sanders, the outreach teams have to look in places where homeless youth may be trying to hide from the cold, such as parking garages.
Sanders also says homeless people face added struggles during the winter months, including increased substance abuse to help them get through the cold nights.
“If they’re using drugs or alcohol, sometimes that’s a tactic to stay warm or stay up so they’re not falling asleep in the extreme cold,” says Sanders.
One expert says the local climate makes being homeless in Ottawa significantly more difficult than in most other cities. Tim Aubry, research chair on community mental health and homelessness at the University of Ottawa, says the city’s winters can be notably unkind to the homeless.
“Homelessness in general is dangerous. It’s particularly bad in Ottawa,” says Aubry. “We have cold spells where people shouldn’t be outside for extended periods of time. That’s a complication.”
According to Aubry, winter weather means more work is required of service systems such as homeless shelters and drop-in centres.
“They have to mobilize and ensure that people stay safe in those kinds of conditions,” says Aubry. “It’s just more people using the shelters. It’s during the winter months that they end up being full, or beyond into overflow.”
Over the winter, services such as Centre 507 encourage donations of money, food and clothing. Money donations can be made online, while winter clothing donations can be brought to the Centretown United Church at 507 Bank St.