Freezing …. in Squamish
Oi, Mother Nature has been hard on parts of Sea to Sky Country and the Sunshine Coast in the last two weeks. As far as I know there is still a boil water advisory on for Vancouver and much of Horseshoe Bay, Lion’s Bay are still without hydro. Squamish has had two or three power outages in the last two weeks - not for that long but one does not know how long a power outage will last so one must be prepared (that old Brownie mantra!)
The first day of the deep freeze here I marched across the street to the local newspaper office and asked to see a reporter. Someone was sent out to talk to me (almost immediately!) and I expressed my concern about the lack of emergency planning vis a vis the homeless people in the Squamish community and the extreme cold (I have been wearing all my Ottawa winter outfits for the last couple of days and I am still cold, even in the office!) People, especially in Squamish, are not used to this type of cold and there are no community plans in place to gather up homeless people and offer them a warm spot (there is a 9 am to 5 pm drop-in underway and set to open in three weeks time) but this does not address where people who are homeless are supposed to sleep in this type of weather or where they can go in the meantime to keep warm.
So, big-mouth here, makes it an issue for the municipality to address. Thankfully, the ‘reporter’ that was sent out to speak with me was the big cheese at The Chief - the editor. She just moved here in the last six months from Winnipeg so she knows about cold. She thanked me for raising this issue, as did the reporter who called me today, and I just said that as an addictions worker I had seen lots of folks drink and drug more to try and stay warm (very erroneous concept but …) and worked with people in Ontario who had lost fingers and toes due to frost-bite. There is a big risk of hypothermia, not to mention death, if people who are homeless do not have shelter in such weather conditions and that many communities have emergency plans in place in these conditions to provide shelter to people who are homeless.
In my earnest passion, I did not clear this expression of my opinion with any of the higher ups at work and I may end up in doo-doo when I am quoted in the local paper on Friday. I did tell my boss, after the fact, that I had done this and thankfully I will be away from the office attending conferences in Vancouver from Dec. 1 and back in the office Dec. 13th. I hate the muzzling that goes on … if I had raised the issue in the workplace I would have been sent here and there by phone and nothing would be done. A waste of my time and energy.
Update: I was told today (Wednesday, November 29th) that over-night shelter will be provided for homeless people at the local United Church (they do so much good work!) The current concern is finding people to do the night shift at the church hall. This is a community generated response as the municipality doesn’t consider this issue to be part of their ‘emergency response’ planning, etc. I also read in the paper that the BC govt. sets aside money to provide for shelter in these situations but there has to be a proposal done to access these funds (which hasn’t been done yet in Squamish). At least people will have somewhere to keep warm as not only is it supposed to go to -16 tonight, it is also starting to snow heavily!
