Outreach workers rush to get homeless people off the streets as polar vortex approaches

With the first significant cold snap of the winter upon us, getting people into a shelter and off the streets can be the difference between life and death.

“The biggest difference is just that danger element of the cold you know. It’s never fun being homeless, it’s not fun being outside when it’s zero degrees but when it’s minus 15, minus 20, it becomes dangerous,” says the coordinator of the Navigator Street Outreach Program, Eric Jonsson.

Michael Kabalen is the executive director of the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia. He says based on their data, there are 799 people experiencing chronic homelessness in Halifax.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean all 799 people are in need of emergency shelter either. People could be couch surfing, they could be living in their cars, they could be living in inadequate housing, so those folks typically have, in this type of weather, a place to go,” Kabalen says.

It’s difficult to put an exact number on how many people are living rough outside. However, as frigid temperatures move in, finding a place out of the cold is difficult.
“We do know all the shelters are effectively full as of last night. There’s a couple of beds here and there but for the most part, the shelters are running full,” says Kabalen.

For the first time this winter, ice is forming in Charlottetown Harbour, an indication of how cold it is. Prince Edward Island’s department of Social Development and Housing is opening shelters and has secured additional beds if shelters reach capacity.

Back in Nova Scotia, Jonsson says there is something people can do to help.

“Checking on people. I think a lot of people in the general public know homeless people in their neighbourhood and they don’t want to bother them or anything like that. But check in on the folks they know who are outside and see if they need anything.

Jonsson says donations of warm clothes, sleeping bags, hats and gloves can be taken to any outreach program in the area.

There is some help coming, although it is down the road. One-hundred-and-two shelter rooms and 60 affordable units will be completed by the end of the year.