Six non-profit agencies have issued a joint release calling for greater public investment in shelters designed to safely house the homeless and provide them with the supports they need to turn their lives around.
As things stand, the agencies say, the shelters are plagued by problems that include understaffing, dangerous work conditions, and the inappropriate use of rundown buildings for shelters.
鈥淭he cycle of bringing challenging persons in from the cold, to shelter them in the most basic of temporary shelters, to provide the barest of supports, to make limited investment in health, skills and real housing, and then to have them exited back to the streets on the first day of spring with a tent and well wishes, has become an exercise in futility at best,鈥 states the release from the six organizations.
鈥淲hile it may provide an escape from the cold, it is a sickeningly purposeless proposition to consider this a solution to the humanitarian crisis we are facing,鈥 say sa国际传媒sa国际传媒 Gospel Mission, John Howard, Turning Points, the ASK Wellness Society, the Penticton and District Society for Community Living, and the Nicola Valley Shelter and Support Society.
Shelter operators say they are having difficulty hiring enough staff to work at the temporary shelters.
鈥淥ur sector attracts bright, capable, talented individuals who want to make a difference; we offer them winter shelter work that is dangerous, underpaid and woefully under-resourced,鈥 the operators say.
鈥淲e know we cannot adequately staff, cannot adequately protect the employees who work there from harm, and also cannot properly safeguard the clients who 鈥榣ive鈥 there,鈥 the operators say.
