It was the busiest and most challenging winter yet for Delta’s Emergency Weather Shelter (EWS) and organizers are grateful for the community support that helped get them through it.
Out of a possible 144 nights, the Ladner United Church based shelter was opened 119 times before being de-activated last week. A 26-consecutive night run ended briefly in January before the shelter re-opened for 53 straight more nights.
“I would like to take this opportunity to express many thanks to staff and volunteers from Ladner United Church and Options Community Services,” said City of Delta’s Social Planner Olga Shcherbyna. “Their commitment to supporting residents experiencing homelessness is truly inspiring. Any extreme weather season is challenging, but this year was a particularly difficult one and the Delta EWS team made sure that shelter guests were pampered every night and especially for Christmas and New Year. Delta is lucky to have such passionate and committed residents who truly make this city a better place to live.”
EWS operated under strict COVID-19 health restrictions that included the number of available beds reduced from nine to five. The tiresome efforts to keep everyone safe certainly paid off.
“We were one of the really lucky ones that didn’t see COVID hit and any of our homeless die where other shelters had losses,” said a grateful Shirley Baker, the EWS coordinator. “When you welcome people inside you establish relationships with these people and really care for them.
“We had some long runs this time. (When we are asked to open) we never say no. We can handle it. We can rest end of March. We find that all the shelters will basically say the same thing.”
Baker went on to thank a healthy list of volunteers, the cleaners and night staff, along with the support of Options Community Services and the City of Delta.
“I’m just so thankful for our community,” she added. “People contacted me many times asking what could they give or what are our needs? When I would come to the shelter door often something would be dropped off.”
Baker is hopeful the vaccine rollout will have progressed enough by next November to see the shelter closer to normal operations.
