Editor’s note: This is the first of a multi-part series on addressing homelessness in Renfrew County.
Robert Fisher
Staff Reporter
PEMBROKE – Co-ordination was the watchword when discussing the county response to homelessness during a discussion at the recently-opened warming centre in Pembroke.
The centre, housed in the Ontario Addiction Treatment Centre (OATC) in Pembroke, opened for the season Dec. 7. The centre was open from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. for the first week and staff hoped to be able to open 24 hours a day by this past Saturday.
The space, recently renovated to serve as a warming centre, has a dedicated entrance and about 20 large recliners for people to sit or sleep in. There is a separate sitting area for conversations, a kitchenette and washrooms. People can keep belongings in lockers and/or cubbies which have been built along one wall of the space.
The warming centre was in a trailer last season and in a different location. Manager of Community Supports for the County of Renfrew, April Muldoon, explained that the county had virtually no role in operation of the centre last year, aside from some funding. An ad hoc warming centre committee determined that the county should take a more prominent role and a larger space, washrooms and kitchenette amenities helped determine that a new location was needed.
The centre is what is referred to as a “dry” space. That means people, generally, have to come in sober or perhaps slightly intoxicated but they are not supposed to consume in the centre and they cannot come in in an advanced state of inebriation and ‘sleep off’ the high.
“If somebody’s state of mind is such that they can’t reasonably participate in conversation, if it feels like their health is at risk,” the person would be referred to emergency services or a hospital, said Muldoon.
There are no cots or beds in the centre. Muldoon was clear that the space is not a shelter which could entail different rules and procedures due to the centre being determined a residential facility as compared to a drop-in centre. “It’s not a homeless shelter,” she said.
“It’s intended for people to come in out of the cold, to have somewhere safe to be,” and be able to get needed rest which may be important in helping address other issues an individual may be experiencing besides homelessness.
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