News of a homeless man dying outdoors – while the Sunshine Coast’s only shelter lacked the means to open – sparked action from the community and the provincial government last week.
Harry Paul, 56, was found dead on a bench outside a Gibsons business on Nov. 14.
Two days after the story appeared in Coast Reporter, thousands of dollars had been raised by the community, BC Housing had sent a team to Sechelt to open the shelter immediately, and the provincial ministry pledged $40,000 to fund nightly operations until the end of March.
“Coast Reporter published the story online on Thursday and in the paper on the Friday, and the story went viral apparently online and very soon got picked up by major media,” said Rev. Clarence Li of the Sunshine Coast Cold Weather Shelter, situated in Sechelt.
“So by Friday we were getting a lot of phone calls, and in particular BC Housing reached out to us,” Li said.
BC Housing was eager to help, he said.
“They were very quick and they were very sincere. They offered to do everything within their capacity to help us open the shelter as soon as possible. They offered some initial funding first and when we indicated that it is more than a funding issue, it is a capacity issue too, in terms of we don’t have our team in place, we are still hiring, and it is important for us to have our staff trained before we open our doors, they were really good,” Li said.
“BC Housing was able to fund an emergency outreach team sent from the Portland Hotel Society to come and help us open the doors on Saturday evening [Nov. 21].”
Portland Hotel Society (PHS) manages a variety of housing programs and services for the homeless in Vancouver.
The shelter is now open nightly from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. to serve the homeless population of the Sunshine Coast.
The change in scope (the shelter was originally only funded to open on days of extreme weather, which equated to around 50 days last season) created the need to hire more staff members, coordinator Nora Jessome said. Ads for those positions are being placed this week.
While staffing gets sorted out, the team from PHS has been manning the shelter. Local staff members already in place are benefiting from the wisdom of the team’s experience.
“They are very happy to assist us with training, which is a very important piece to us, because we may have accumulated some experience over the last three years of running the program but there are agencies, like PHS, that have greater capacity to provide the adequate training, some solid training for our staff to help us to manage the shelter program,” Li said.
As well as funding the team from PHS, BC Housing has committed $40,000 to the shelter. That’s in addition to the funds it already provides to open on nights of extreme weather events.
“Shelter for those who are homeless is a priority for our government, and this funding will ensure people in need have access to a safe, warm place to stay this winter,” Housing Minister Rich Coleman said.
“We will continue to engage with the community over the coming months to explore long-term shelter and housing options for homeless individuals on the Sunshine Coast.”
The $40,000 replaces a federal grant that wasn’t approved for the Sunshine Coast shelter this year.
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country MP Pam Goldsmith-Jones said she would “have to learn” more about the grant the previous federal government denied the shelter, noting, “unstable funding is part of the issue that we’re trying to address – because the federal government has, in the past, I think dropped the ball on that.”
Goldsmith-Jones said she would talk about the issue with ministers at an upcoming sitting of the House of Commons next week.
She planned to meet with Jessome on Nov. 26 to get a better sense of what the shelter needs will be going forward.
“I’m working as fast as I can and I think that we have reason to be optimistic because our government sees a role for the federal government in supportive housing of all kinds.”
Community Response
One community member started raising funds within minutes of reading about Paul’s death in Coast Reporter online.
“I guess the visual of this man dying alone in the cold was very upsetting to me,” Sechelt resident Paula Howley said. “I just wept. And then I thought, ‘They only need $40,000 – that’s not very much money and we can easily do that on the Coast.’
“So I just thought ‘somebody should do this,’ and then there’s the thought, ‘if not you, then who?’ So instead of waiting for somebody else to do it, I just decided to do it right there on the spot.”
Howley started a GoFundMe campaign titled Keep Coast Shelter Open 4 Winter online and posted it to the comments section of Coast Reporter’s website.
It took about 10 minutes for the first giver to donate and just two days to reach more than $3,000.
“It was shared about 500 times. It really got around fast,” Howley said.
Once she heard about the funding coming in from BC Housing, she stopped the campaign, but people can still give if they wish, as the webpage hasn’t been deactivated. Howley said she will turn over all the funds to the shelter to use as it sees fit in the future.
“Any additional funding we receive we would be able to use to expand and extend services,” Li noted.
Howley said the overwhelming support from the community helped lift her spirits from the sad place she was in when she started the campaign.
“My heart feels almost healed by the incredible love that I saw coming in. Many people donated in Harry’s name. Many people donated anonymously and those were the ones that really touched me the most. And many people asked me who they could contact to volunteer or to donate food and other things,” Howley said.
Li said the shelter has no room to store donations of items like bedding or clothing, but he encourages the public to drop off donations to the Salvation Army Thrift store where shelter guests can shop using chits given by shelter staff.
He also encouraged those who wanted to volunteer to cook or donate food to contact Jessome, as the shelter plans to run a breakfast and dinner program for guests this year.
“We will be having a meeting in a couple of weeks with people who are interested in helping with food to look at a model that will work this year,” Jessome said.
If you would like to get involved, contact her at norajessome.shelter@gmail.com
Jessome is also seeking more shelter volunteers and an ad has been placed on www.scvolunteer.com for those who would like to apply.
Li thanks the community for its outpouring of support and love in the wake of Paul’s tragic death, which alerted people to a serious problem on the Coast.
Paul’s family has now been notified of his passing and his name has been released by the BC Coroners Service, which said he was found seated on a bench under a covered outdoor walkway at a motel in Gibsons on the morning of Nov. 14.
While the Sunshine Coast RCMP has ruled out foul play, the cause of Paul’s death has not yet been determined, as the BC Coroners Service is still awaiting lab results.
