A Timmins neighbourhood was "blindsided" by the news of a homeless shelter expanding and opening a new location, according to Lisa Dagenais.
Friday, Living Space announced it's opening a second location that will allow the 30-bed shelter to expand to more than 50 beds.
With concerns about safety, Dagenais has started a petition to stop Living Space from relocating its emergency overnight shelter to 316 Spruce St. S. So far, it's garnered nearly 1,200 signatures of support.
Before the announcement was made Friday, she said people in the area didn't know what was happening.
“It was honestly devastating news to our neighbourhood to know that what we see on Cedar and Algonquin is now going to happen in our community,” she said.
Dagenais lives near the new location that was previously a daycare and engineering firm. Before that, it was the former location of the Timmins Native Friendship Centre.
Dagenais is raising three grandchildren under the age of five and is concerned about their safety if the shelter relocates.
“I’m raising my three grandchildren because my daughter has mental health issues and drug addiction and is homeless and is living at Living Space and tells me what the conditions are,” she said.
She is supportive of the need for services for people and said the city needs a rehabilitation centre.
“We’re not saying don’t provide these people with a place to sleep. We’re saying provide them with more help. Provide them with not just a place to sleep, but somewhere to get help,” said Dagenais.
By opening a second location, Living Space executive director Jason Sereda said they are working toward a one-stop facility.
Starting next month, administrative spaces from the Cedar Street site will be transferred to the new location while renovations are ongoing. The goal is to have all of the operations, including the emergency shelter, at the Spruce Street building by October. The existing location will offer single, transitional and supportive housing.
"The idea is by separating the transitional units it’s really building that continuum of housing," said Sereda.
"We know that the goal is to get people into the community where they can live independently with the minimal amount of supports and for that to be successful really people need to be removed from this crisis scenario that led to homelessness in the first place. It really helps people’s recovery if we have separate sites for different purposes."
Over the past few winters, Sereda said the organization has scrambled to find a location that can accommodate the number of people needing shelter.
"This new location will allow us to do that. Certainly, we don’t want the shelter to be full, we’re working towards the goal of having nobody in the community requiring emergency shelter, but the new space will allow us to accommodate additional people,” he said.
Living Space is interested in hearing from the community to make sure its needs are reflected in the developments at the site.
Dagenais questions why there was no communication prior to the announcement, though.
“It’s a little too late. That should have been discussed with the neighbourhood, with the community before this was done. Before this was a done deal, as they claim, it should have been discussed with the community,” she said.
Sereda couldn't speak to the process that's happened up to now.
"Living Space made the announcement at our earliest opportunity," he said. "We’re actually renting the space off of DSSAB so being that they’re the property owners, they would have gone through the proper channels and processes when purchasing the building, but we weren’t part of that process. So we’re really moving forward now that it’s finalized that we will become the occupants of the new building. Now that that’s official, I want to start engaging people in that process."
Because the building is already zoned to allow for the shelter, the decision didn't have to go to Timmins council for approval.
In a news release today, Mayor George Pirie said the second location is good news for the city.
“It’s exciting that a collaborative approach to addressing homelessness has led to this opportunity," he said.
Sereda is hoping to have as many conversations as possible, noting it will have to be flexible due to the pandemic restriction.
What they do know, he said, is that the existing programming will remain.
“We’ll have our 24/7 street outreach out there engaging with people and we’ll also continue doing the sharps collection that we’ve been doing for the community. But we do know that the Timmins Police have released multiple reports over the last few years identifying that crime hasn’t gone up in the downtown core and that most occurrences aren’t related to Living Space so we really have to trust the experts on that information and then just work on situations as they arise,” he said.
With the petition still garnering support, Dagenais and Lynn Gagnon said the best outcome would be a new location with proper programs.
"We don’t want to stop a shelter from being expanded on, we just want it to be done properly and in a way that’s going to keep our community safe, our property values where they are and help the people with more than just somewhere to sleep. We want to help these people improve on their life and become productive people of society. We want to see them function in society we don’t want to be afraid to walk down the streets. This is a downtown core already whose got crime, who have business owners being attacked, who have broken windows, theft,” said Dagenais.
She's also proud of how the community's come together since the announcement.
"I really didn’t think it was going to get this big this fast and I’m really happy that people aren’t afraid to speak up,” she said.
With the attention that announcement is getting, Gagnon noted there's the possibility to discuss other options.
“The community could come together maybe do a fundraiser or something like that to help them raise more funds in order to be able to purchase a piece of land. It doesn’t have to be a negative thing, it could be definitely a positive thing,” Gagnon said.
