With no notice of provincial funding, the overnight shelter program at Living Space is closing next week.
The closure is effective Monday, April 29. According to the news release, the board of directors hopes to "re-open the program as soon as possible under the newly incorporated non-profit organization."
Living Space is a hub in Timmins dedicated to ending chronic homelessness.
While the shelter program is ceasing, it will still be operating its 11 transitional housing units, and daytime drop-in programs.
There is a demand for the shelter.
“Our capacity is 20 beds a night, but we’re typically seeing between 25 and 30 people staying the night,” said executive director Jason Sereda, explaining 20 people would be in beds and five to 10 other people choose to stay awake at the tables.
“We’ll be working with our community partners like the Good Samaritan Inn, Timmins Area Women in Crisis and other housing providers to make sure that people are provided a safe place to go. Whoever isn’t able to access one of those other shelters we’re working with CDSSAB to see if we can get people placed at the Bon Air Motel,” he said.
The annual operating budget for the non-profit is about $750,000. About 80 per cent of that is provincial funding, said Sereda.
The non-profit has been receiving funding through the provincial Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative, and Home for Good programs.
“Typically they let everybody know before April 1 because that’s when the new fiscal year starts, but we haven’t received notice yet,” he said.
While they are also actively seeking other funding through the federal Reaching Home program and other funders, Sereda said “right now we’re relying on community donations and looking how we can stretch the budget we already have.”
The doors to the emergency shelter opened over the winter of 2018, however the organization just celebrated its grand opening in October on World Homelessness Day.
For people wanting to help out, you can reach out to the volunteer co-ordinator through their website or Facebook.
“We are going to keep the daytime operations open from 12 to 4, so we really need to rely on dedicated volunteers for that to happen,” he said.
