BC Housing funding for the Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society’s extreme weather shelter was more than double the amount from last year, but still won’t be enough to cover the shelter’s projected budget.

Extreme weather shelter operator Keri Cooke told the Herald the society received $34,000 from BC Housing this year, up from the $12,000 the group received to run the shelter last year.

“I think they realized the need in the community,” Cooke said of BC Housing’s increase in funding.

Cooke said the shelter’s projected budget to stay open this winter season between November 2013 and March 2014 is $52,000.

The remaining $18,000 will have to come from fundraising or corporate sponsors. The society has received about $11,500 from sponsors so far.

Cooke told the Herald if the remaining funding needed to operate the shelter doesn’t come in, they will take steps to ensure they remain open until the end of March, even if that means cutting staff and going to a 100 per cent volunteer-run shelter.

“We will do everything in our power to keep it open as long as possible,” Cooke said.

Two years ago, BC Housing pulled its funding of Merritt’s cold weather shelter, which at the time was set up at Crossroads Community Church.

“Statistically, on paper, people weren’t using it,” community policing co-ordinator Kelly Donaldson said.

BC Housing kept that funding in the community, but it went to fund a housing outreach program, Cooke said.

The society decided to move the shelter downtown and operated on just $6,000, all of which came from donations.

It was accessed over 500 times over the course of four months and staffed with only volunteers, who worked 900 hours each month.

“It’s not a sustainable model,” Donaldson told the Herald of that setup.

Cooke said there was burnout amongst the staff and safety could have been compromised, which is why the model has evolved and changed.

Last year, the Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society re-established its connection with BC Housing.

This current season has been the smoothest yet, notably because the society has the funding to pay shelter workers, Donaldson and Cooke told the Herald.

Cooke said sponsors such as City of Merritt, Fortis BC, the Kamloops Foundation, Aspen Planers, Tolko and the Lower Nicola Indian Band have all provided financial contributions to keep the shelter up and running this year. They’ve also received dollars from community members.

“Individuals in the community will come forward with $100 or $200,” she said, adding that locals will also drop off food donations.

Cooke said it takes about 210 man-hours per week to keep the shelter up and running.

The shelter operates with a mix of volunteers and paid staff, and two people are required to be there at all times, she said.

She also said the shelter has about 15 to 23 paid hours of work per day between their hours of operation between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m.

Cooke said there are about 25 people who volunteer with the shelter.

Unlike last year, the extreme cold weather shelter was open during the month of November on days when the temperature was forecasted to be below zero or if there was snow on the ground.

Cooke told the Herald the shelter was open for 25 days in November.

Between December and February, the shelter will be open every night no matter what the mercury reads, but in March it will operate depending on the weather again – as it did last year.

Cooke said she’s assuming the shelter won’t be required to stay open every day in March, but estimated it will need to be open for 130 days this season.

She said 75 people accessed the shelter’s services in November, 54 of whom stayed overnight.

“A lot of the time they’re coming in for food, clothing [and] information on how to access other services,” Cooke said, noting many of the people they serve don’t know about what other support services are available in the community, so they stop in at the shelter.

In December, shelter workers saw 88 people walk through their doors, which is on par with the numbers from last December, when 90 people accessed the cold weather shelter.

Supportive housing facility the goal

The shelter workers also work closely with groups such as ASK Wellness on housing solutions for their clients who access the shelter on multiple nights in a row, Cooke said, noting they don’t turn people away.

“We don’t want that [the shelter] there for people to live in. It’s there as an emergency,” she said.

Cooke said the fewer people who have to access the shelter the better, and the society would like to see a supportive housing facility in Merritt.

“It would eliminate a lot of the people who are accessing the shelter and provide them with supports to keep them permanently housed,” Cooke said.

Merritt has different types of low-income housing, but no supportive housing facility, she said.

Cooke said supports such as drug and alcohol counselling and mental health supports are among those needed.

She said there are other organizations in Merritt that offer services such as those, but none that combine a housing aspect with supports all under one roof.

A supportive housing facility would serve as a home for people in need of those social services until they could overcome their issues and transition out of the facility, Donaldson said.

Cooke said the Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society has been trying to bring a supportive housing facility to Merritt for years.

Donaldson said the Henry Leland House in Kamloops is similar to the type of facility they’d be looking at for Merritt.

“Ideally, our facility would be a one-stop shop,” Donaldson said.

Donaldson and Cooke told the Herald that although there are facilities such as ASK Wellness that offer social services, sometimes clients who are referred to another place fail to access that service on their own.

“Although there are services downtown, we do lose them in between blocks, so we lose clients when they have to get from one place to the next,” Donaldson said.

Cooke said she thinks many of those clients are not in a position to access services on their own and would have a better chance of staying on a wellness plan, and integrating back into the community if they were living in a supportive housing facility.

Donaldson and Cooke said the society continues to work toward the goal of having a supportive housing facility in Merritt, but funding continues to be the main hurdle to that goal.

“But are we closer than we were two years ago? Absolutely, because two years ago we didn’t even have a relationship with BC Housing,” Donaldson said.