The Sunshine Coast Homeless Shelter has been full every night since it opened Oct. 15, which is worrisome for shelter coordinator Alicia Ladouceur.
“If it’s full now and it’s not even cold yet, it’s pretty concerning,” Ladouceur said.
Ladouceur works for RainCity Housing, a charity devoted to providing housing and support for the homeless. RainCity has been seeking a new, larger space for the Sunshine Coast shelter for several months.
For the past three years, the shelter has operated out of an annex building at St. Hilda’s Anglican Church, but the space can only accommodate about 15 people.
Ladouceur said a new shelter space would have to be able to fit 25 to 30 people and contain a bathroom and office space as well.
“We’re still looking,” Ladouceur said, noting RainCity has funding to lease a space, so it wouldn’t have to be provided free of charge.
“I’m not sure what else could be created after we’ve looked so much, but we need a bigger space. I feel like we’ve looked at every space, but maybe something will appear.”
She asks anyone who has a lead on a location to contact Aaron Munro, a director with RainCity, at [email protected]
Ladouceur became the new shelter coordinator last month, leaving her post as the outreach coordinator. RainCity has hired a new full-time person for the outreach position.
Nick Gaskin is now the outreach coordinator and helping support those homeless people who can’t access the shelter.
“He’ll be working with them and he’ll also be connecting with the shelter residents to help get them housing,” Ladouceur said.
The Coast’s homeless shelter opened with limited hours (from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.) on Oct. 15 and on Nov. 1 the shelter moved to regular operating hours (4 p.m. to 8 a.m.).
Ladouceur said she’s been asking the community to sign up online to prepare meals for shelter users, and the community has come through big time.
“Since day one we’ve had meals,” Ladouceur said, thanking the community for their support.
“[The meal program is] being organized through a website called www.takethemameal.com, so if people want to contribute a meal they can go to that website. The recipient name is ‘shelter’ and the password is ‘Sechelt.’ They can just log themselves in and pick a date and put the meal that they’re bringing.”
Ladouceur said meals for 20 are needed as there are usually extra guests at dinner time who aren’t able to stay in the shelter overnight due to the limited space.
The community can keep up to date on what the shelter needs by following them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RainCityHousingSunshineCoast
