Operator of Brandon's only homeless shelter holds emergency meeting as capacity limit reached

The only overnight homeless shelter in Manitoba's second-largest city says it has reached a crisis point, with the number of people using the shelter reaching the highest point in its history. 

Samaritan House Ministries Inc., which operates the Safe and Warm Shelter in Brandon, held an emergency meeting Tuesday evening to address the issue.

"These are strong signals that our community is not prepared for extreme weather events this coming winter," said Samaritan House Ministries executive director Barbara McNish.

"If you look at the numbers, I think that that would support another shelter within Brandon."

The shelter says between Jan. 1 and Sept. 16 of this year, it had already served 391 unique clients. That's almost four times the number of people served — 104 —  during the same period in 2019.

Safe and Warm first opened in 2013 as a 10-bed emergency shelter. It used to close in the late spring and reopen in the fall, but got funding last year to stay open year-round.

The shelter now has a maximum occupancy of 41 at any given time, but has been pushed to that point, said McNish, and the Samaritan House board must decide how to move forward when the capacity limit is passed.

"Turning people away was never one of our options. We thought we could always manage," she said. "Now we're at capacity and we have to say 'full is full.'"

Safe and Warm has been networking with other non-profits serving the vulnerable, McNish said, but it remains the city's only overnight emergency shelter for adults experiencing homelessness.

The City of Brandon said in a statement to CBC it is working with Samaritan House, the province of Manitoba and other support agencies to co-ordinate resources and find solutions to the housing crisis.

Capacity crisis, not a surprise

The Brandon's Women's Resource Centre also says it's also working with a record-high number of women experiencing homelessness.

"The population is just so diverse," and includes "homeless women in their 20s and homeless women in their 60s," said Sandy Smith, the advocacy and community engagement co-ordinator at the resource centre. It offers a range of support services, including counselling and drop-in services like a breakfast program.

"Homelessness is a crisis in our community."

It's a tough situation being felt by service providers across Brandon, many of which are also stretched to capacity, she said.

"As a rural community we service a lot of smaller rural communities … and to just have that one homeless shelter, you know, it's not sufficient."

It is frustrating looking to the future because the options to help those experiencing homelessness remain limited, said Smith.

Solutions need to come from all levels of government to support non-profits doing front-line work, she said.

"We can't just flip the switch and solve ... our houselessness crisis."

Unhoused numbers have reached a crisis point in the city because all programs and organizations trying to house those in need are becoming overwhelmed, said Florence Halcrow, the co-ordinator for the Ask Auntie program. It offers supports for vulnerable people in Brandon's downtown core, such as mentorship and help for Indigenous girls and women and a daytime drop-in centre.

"There's not enough resources for the amount of people that are coming to our community to find housing, nor do we have enough housing in our community to house the people that we already have," Halcrow said.

She began to see the numbers of homeless people increase at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and says inflation has made it harder still to meet basic needs like shelter and food.

"I don't know where our people are gonna sleep," Halcrow said. "It's going to be heartbreaking to see these people, knowing that they're going to try to find shelter somewhere else outside because everything else is locked up."

Hidden homelessness

People working with homeless and vulnerable populations have seen the simmering crisis reaching a boiling point, said Lisa Noctor. She's the co-ordinator with GAP, or the Gakina Abinoojiiyag Program — an Ojibway name that translates to "all children." It's an outreach program for vulnerable youth operated by the Brandon Friendship Centre.

The capacity issue at the Safe and Warm shelter doesn't actually paint a full picture of how serious homelessness is in Brandon, she said, because the shelter does not accommodate youth.

"There is a great deal of hidden homelessness that exists here in Brandon, and … across the province and all across Canada, that is largely made up by youth," Noctor said. 

She said there's a large number of people between the ages of 13 and 17 who are couch-surfing, keeping a roof over their head only by bouncing between different places.

Those youth need help to avoid experiencing chronic homelessness in the future, said Noctor.

For now, she said she is terrified about what accessing safe shelter will look like as winter approaches.

"It keeps me up at night because we don't have enough emergency shelter space," she said.

She worries about the continued fallout of economic pressures like rising prices for grocery, fuel and rent.

"It's concerning to think about where are we headed."