By Angela Hill

Cold weather keeps shelters busy

Feb 5, 2011 | 2:20 PM

Community-based organization in Prince Albert had a busy first month of 2011.

With the cold weather and shortage of affordable housing, more people have been relying on services, said Connie Farber, executive director of the Prince Albert Indian Métis Friendship Centre.

“It has been extremely busy … they actually are sticking around all day long, just getting out of the cold,” she said.

Usually clients just stop by the centre for a cup of coffee or to meet with a worker, instead of staying for long periods of time.

“You worry about them at night because you don’t know where they are going to end up,” Farber said.

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Meanwhile, The YWCA Our House cannot provide beds for any more people.

“We are full and we are turning away seven people a day, probably,” said Edna Bruce, the shelter manager.

She said she notices that people seem to be stranded —they are coming to town, but have nowhere to go.

“The month of January we probably had six and seven people in our lobby for most of the day,” Bruce said.

“They come here, warm up … they make their rounds.”

At the Prince Albert Mobile Crisis Unit, they are having fairly normal winter season, but executive director Al Reis said January was busier than December.

They deal with a lot of people feeling low and a bit depressed with the dark conditions and cold weather, he said.

This is on top of emergency housing and food requests.

“You would think maybe in the colder weather there would be more requests, we did have more requests in January than December, I’m sure, but not just specifically on the cold days,” he said.

More people around and needing help has Farber thinking about emergency shelters.

“We see a lot of people looking for … transitional housing during these winter months and unfortunately there’s not a lot of it that’s available, so they’re struggling,” she said.

While there has been talk of opening a so-called ‘mat’ program, a temporary emergency shelter, but groups have been unable to create a workable plan, yet, Farber said.

One was just started at the North Battleford Indian Métis Friendship Centre.

ahill@panow.com