On Friday afternoon, a group of islanders migrated to from the Snug Café to the Caring Circle cottage on Cardena Road to discuss ways to provide immediate help to individuals on Bowen Island who find themselves without a safe, warm and dry place to spend the night. They emerged with a plan to set up a temporary emergency shelter on the second floor of the library, a week later, the shelter is closed due to library renovations and there is no shelter of any form set up for Bowen Islanders without a safe and reliable home.
The initial push to set up a shelter came Thursday after a day of bitter cold, snow and high winds. The power went out across the island around 8pm, and Islander Jen McIntyre wrote and posted the story of her day on the Bowen Island Everything Else Facebook Page. Her story told of lucking-out by finding a hard-working labourer on short notice on a miserable day, helping him out by bringing him home to warm up and get clean and dry, and then ended in despair, with the man leaving, with no place where he would be able to spend the night.
“Shouldn’t anyone who really wants to be here, be afforded a chance at a locally good-paying job, a warm bed and a place to bathe and cook?” Asked McIntyre. “He must be trying to find a ride to ‘somewhere,’ right now, and the wind is howling.”
This kicked off a long conversation about homelessness on Bowen, and by the next day, plans for an afternoon meeting to take action were in place.
A group of ten concerned Bowen Islanders plus RCMP Cpl. Paulo Arreaga, Colleen O’Neil from Caring Circle, Councilor Gary Ander and the Municipality’s Emergency Services Co-Ordinator, Jen McGowan, met at Caring Circle.
McGowan took the lead on the meeting by saying that BC Housing Funds emergency shelters, but an Emergency Housing Plan is required to outline a budget, staff and location for the shelter. She said that while a municipality can submit these plans, a non-profit or community group is required to run the shelter.
Cpl. Arreaga said that according to the number of cases RCMP have dealt with there are seven people they consider homeless on Bowen Island. Housing advocate Michael Chapman said that eleven people contacted him to state their housing needs as inadequate. Local artist Marc Bauer said he was shocked to learn that homelessness even exists on Bowen Island.
Housing advocate Michael Chapman says eleven people have contacted him saying they have inadequate and unstable housing. He asked to know more about who they were, whether they were new people who gravitated to the island or people who had been displaced.
“I can tell you there are people who have been homeless on this island for several years,” said Chapman. “Yes, many of these people have problems with mental health and addiction, but shouldn’t we be finding ways to get them the help they need?”
After a call with Municipal Chief Administrative Officer Kathy Lalonde, councillor Gary Ander returned to the meeting with news that the second floor of the library could be used as a shelter space for a few days. Chapman volunteered to stay in the shelter and take responsibility for the situation.
“On the first night, one person other than me spent the night and we had several other visitors,” says Chapman. “One person had a bath, and expressed his extreme gratitude for the chance to have his first bath in three years. We also went out that night and brought pizza to several other individuals sleeping in various locations around the Cove.”
Chapman says that there were several other visitors over the next few nights, but he is not keen on focusing on numbers.
“In order for a shelter to be effective, you need to have a strong outreach component and build trust. That takes time, especially with people who we have disenfranchised,” he says.
By Monday, the library started to move books into the upstairs space in order to prepare for the next stage of renovation. That evening, the group re-convened to talk about the next steps.
Reverend Shelagh MacKinnon had volunteered Collins Hall as an option for an emergency shelter, but a number of people argued that this was too far from the Cove.
As explained in the meeting, the municipality did not approve of using the Caring Circle building as an Emergency Shelter due to concerns about the septic and washroom facilities. Others began to question the possibility of using the Seaside Cottage at the foot of Crippen Park on Cardena Road as a shelter. The cottage is the property of Metro Parks, and is currently being used as an office. As of Wednesday (the time of publication) members of the group calling themselves Bowen Emergency Shelter Team are trying to connect with Metro Parks to inquire about using the cottage.
The group has collected a total of five foam sleeping pads, and through the weekend members of the community donated food and other items. The group is not currently collecting donations and is asking community members who want to help to simply hold off until there are specific needs to be met.
