BC Housing has committed to support a winter shelter in Gibsons, after efforts to get a 24/7 homeless shelter established in Sechelt gave new momentum to the push for some sort of a shelter in Gibsons as well.
Gibsons councillor Silas White, the Town’s liaison to the Sunshine Coast Homelessness Advisory Committee, told Coast Reporter that RainCity Housing, which operates the Sechelt shelter, will assist in getting the shelter up and running, but it will also rely heavily on volunteers.
White said Christ the King Church has expressed interest in hosting the shelter at the former Church on the Rock at 599 Gower Point Road.
The need for a shelter in or near Gibsons kept coming up during the information meetings and public hearings leading up to Sechelt council’s approval of the rezoning for the Upper Deck shelter.
One of the people who was sounding the call for a Gibsons area shelter is Troy Mathews, who’s been camping in various places around the town since May of last year.
He said trying to get some public attention and action on establishing a shelter was one of the reasons he moved his campsite to Inglis Park at the Five Corners intersection in the heart of Gibsons Landing.
Mathews said over the months he’s been living rough, he has camped on Squamish Nation lands off Marine Drive, on the George Hotel properties on Gower Point Road and municipal land, and each time he had to move on.
“I’m done being hidden, so here I am … and it’s worked,” said Mathews, who also used community Facebook groups to get people talking about the need for shelter space in Gibsons.
He has since been joined at Inglis Park by Joe Sanderson, who said he was living on a property he and a friend had been hired to clean up in Roberts Creek, only to be told by Sunshine Coast Regional District bylaw officials that they couldn’t camp there while they did the job, even with the owner’s permission.
Mathews said he’d use a shelter if it was in the Gibsons area, but a Sechelt shelter isn’t practical for him, and not just because the Upper Deck in Sechelt has been at capacity almost every night since it opened.
He said for him, and several others he knows, being in or close to Gibsons is crucial because it’s where they have contacts and know employers who can offer occasional jobs.
“We need the contacts. Work for us comes because somebody knows us, or we’ve worked for them before, and they need us for a couple of hours… [Sechelt] is too far away for any of us to keep up with what we’ve got to keep up with to survive.”
Sanderson agrees. “To go all the way up to Sechelt, and maybe get turned down and have to sleep in a cubby hole and then get up at 6 o’clock to get all the way back here to go to work, just doesn’t work,” he said.
And Mathews said there are at least a half-dozen people he knows who would rather be in Gibsons. “There are others in Sechelt right now who would prefer to be here and would stay here if there was a [shelter] here, which would open up beds,” said Mathews, who added that those extra beds will be sorely needed when the worst of the winter weather sets in.
White told Coast Reporter that as well as working to get BC Housing to support a shelter, he was in contact with Mathews and Town staff and did not see the small camp as a problem.
“Individuals have stayed in our parks in the past and our parks department does a tremendous job in supporting them and checking in on them to ensure their health and safety and to make sure they have access to services that they need. That remains the case in this situation,” White said. “If a larger tent city did develop and create some broader community concerns, that’s something that would have to come to council to consider.”
An information meeting on the shelter will be held Monday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. at 599 Gower Point Road. White said people who want more information or can help out as volunteers can email [email protected] or call 604-741-7023.
