Connection Centre will host overnight warming centre for homeless

St. Paul’s Church will be operating an overnight warming centre this winter, an extension of the Stratford Connection Centre that also runs out of the Douro Street church. Although the centre isn't a traditional shelter with beds, it will have couches, warm meals and a place to stay.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After a unanimous decision at a special Stratford city council meeting on Oct. 20, the Stratford Connection Centre will be home to a “warming centre” for the city’s unsheltered this winter.

“Our idea here is to find a gap solution and get us to that transition piece of what we call permanent supportive housing,” Mayor Martin Ritsma said about the initiative. “… And so that's the idea, the idea of spending as little money as possible on shelter and warming centres, and putting that money towards (supportive housing) – and building a case with our province.

“I had conversation with (Perth-Wellington MPP) Matthew Rae saying, if this goes through, we need to have further conversation,” Ritsma continued.

The warming centre was first discussed in council chambers on Sept. 8, when Coun. Geza Wordofa put forward a motion to have a temporary shelter at the Stratford Rotary Complex this winter. Although he was the only councillor to be in favour, many councillors expressed interest in the warming centre idea members of the Stratford Council of Churches had suggested, telling council that work has already been undertaken to start centres, engaging with stakeholders and investigating possible options.

This recently passed warming centre is the culmination of that work and has a few marked differences to a shelter.

The biggest difference is a lack of beds. As Catherine Hardman, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Huron Perth, said, there are a few reasons for that.

“If we have cots and sleeping arrangements it adds a whole other element around insurance, it changes the dynamic around how many people we can actually have, etcetera,” Hardman said. “So right now, we can probably have 30 or 40 people, if people are sitting in tables and those sorts of things.

“We know that people may fall asleep and that's fine. And like I said, we do have couches and different things like that … If that happens, it just happens, but it changes the dynamic if you put actual beds in there.”

After the meeting, when asked if that technical difference between a warming centre and a shelter (being beds or no beds) might be too fine a line, Hardman said no.

“I don’t think so, no,” Hardman told the Times. “We have people who may sleep (at the Connection Centre) now, right? We’re not so worried about that.”

The warming centre will be operated out of the Connection Centre, which itself runs out of St. Paul’s Church on Douro Street. It will have couches, tables and chairs, as well as refreshments and warm meals available. The service will largely be the same, other than the hours of operation and staff. While the Connection Centre has other service providers always operating out of it, the warming centre will only have two CMHA Perth Huron social service workers and a private security guard. The Connection Centre is open noon to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, and the warming centre will run seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Doors will always be open, no matter the weather, and is expected to cost the city, which will foot the bill, $350,000. The unbudgeted funds will be taken from the recent HST audit, as well as the city’s Tax Rate Stabilization Reserve.

In addition to the new centre, council voted in favour of continuing to run its emergency accommodations program, which provides hotel and motel rooms for the unhoused. As Coun. Jo-Dee Burbach said during the meeting, while Stratford doesn’t have a traditional brick-and-mortar shelter, the emergency accommodations program provides shelter for the homeless, just in a different method. The program costs $300,000 for the six-month November to April period it operates.

Costing for the warming centre was based on the same six-month period, though Hardman and staff were doubtful that it would be able to start up so quickly. CMHA Perth Huron will need to set up the space and find qualified people to operate it.

“If we start hiring and get them trained, my hope would definitely be by mid-December,” Hardman said.

Coun. Mark Hunter voted in favour of the service, though noted that even though this is one-time funding, the city should prepare for the future.

“As much as I love this to be a one-year-only program, I don't think the need for this is going away after this winter,” Hunter said.