The extreme weather shelter at the Kamloops Alliance Church. (Photo via Brett Mineer)
The extreme weather shelter at the Kamloops Alliance Church off Fortune Drive has been busy on the 13 days that it has been operational.
Mustard Seed Managing Director, Kelly Thomson, says they’ve had a total of 310 visits since the shelter opened on Dec. 14, 2022.
“[A total of] 215 of those were men and 95 are women, which is honestly a surprise to me,” Thomson said, on NL Newsday. “I didn’t think there was going to be that many women out there just kind of wandering around the streets that didn’t have shelter.”
“If we look at the stats from our other shelter on 181 Victoria Street West, its about 20 per cent are women. This one is considerably higher.”
The eextreme weather shelter – which opens when the nighttime temperature reaches -10 C or when there is 5 cm of snow on the ground – is set to close at the end of this month. It is capable of supporting up to 30 people a night.
And Thomson says he feels things have gone well, noting they’ve tried to be good neighbours.
“One of the things that we’re going to do is have some of that community [come in and] we’re going to offer a night where you can come and have coffee and dessert and talk to us because I’d love to know what the experience was,” he added.
“Did it go as well as we think it did? Did we manage to address your concerns when we talked back in early December? Those are all things that will help us get better.”
Thomson adds there were “several opportunities” to connect guests to advocacy services while they were at the shelter.
In all, The Mustard Seed has had four full-time staff members operate the shelter, while the Kamloops Alliance Church provided 275 volunteer hours to support the staff with shelter set-up, meals, or simply spending time with them.
As well, the Motion Church has provided a bus to be used to transport people to and from the shelter at night and in the morning.
Editors note: The Mustard Seed has clarified that it has had 310 total visits since the shelter opened and not 310 unique individuals. The story has been updated to reflect that.
