Salvation Army Centre for Hope pilots initiative offering 5 rooms for couples experiencing homelessness

The Salvation Army Centre for Hope is piloting a new initiative — offering five rooms for couples experiencing homelessness.

Jason Linton, the centre's executive director, says they launched the pilot three weeks ago, and it will run until the end of March when a decision would be made about whether or not it would be continued. That decision would be based on funding availability.

He said they decided to offer the service after observing "a bit of a gap in the service delivery" to people seeking shelter.

"When a couple, for example, comes into a shelter, unless they are at a family shelter, typically they're going to be separated, either by floor or the man will go to one shelter and the women to another," Linton told CBC News.

"So we thought, is that really serving the client? Bringing them together, allowing them to stay together, I think treats them with a sense of dignity, and I think it's very important that we're doing that.

"In addition, it eliminates that feeling of isolation that they may have when they come into a shelter, which is very important," Linton added.

Each of the five rooms for couples has its own bathroom, two beds and storage space.

Linton said the rooms filled up quickly, illustrating the need. 

"We've had referrals that we unfortunately have not been able to accommodate just because our space is limited in that regard," he said. 

Outside of having an individual room and an individual bathroom, Linton said couples are treated like everyone else who uses the shelter.

"They still have to exit the shelter during the daytime, and the expectation is during the day that they are looking for accommodation or working with one of our housing support workers to find accommodation or going to regular appointments that they would normally go to," he said.

"So at 9 a.m. they would exit the shelter and we would allow them to come back in at 4 p.m."

'No one wants to be in a shelter'

Linton credits the City of Windsor for "being on top" of the homelessness situation. With the help of the city, he said the centre has recently expanded its capacity by 20 beds so that it can serve even more people.

"It's very traumatizing to go into a shelter, and quite frankly, no one wants to be in a shelter. They're there because of their desperate situations," he said. 

"So, if we can in any way make them maintain their dignity in one way, shape or form, we feel we're doing them a better service that way."