A look inside the new temporary homeless shelter being operated by Safe Harbour during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Supplied photo)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

addressing concerns

Operators insist Red Deer’s overflow homeless shelters safe to use during pandemic

Apr 2, 2020 | 5:42 PM

The operators of Red Deer’s overflow homeless shelters say they have everything they need to ensure public health measures are being followed to help prevent any spread of COVID-19.

Criticism poured in after a tweet from Minister of Community and Social Services Rajan Sawhney showed a picture of the temporary overflow centre The Mustard Seed is running at City Chapel on Kerry Wood Drive. Many on social media saw Sawhney’s tweet and called the spacing of mats a disaster waiting to happen.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, explained the rationale behind an exemption allowing overflow shelters to lay mats one metre apart overnight when the regulation for physical distancing is two metres.

“Individuals have to be (laying) head to toe,” which she says increases the distance from head to head. “Also a requirement is that during the daytime, two metre spacing must be kept. We know if we were to require two metres between mats, the number of people a shelter could accommodate would be reduced by half.”

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Hinshaw said it’s about weighing the risk for those individuals who need the shelter (to isolate), and having them left out in the cold.

The Mustard Seed’s space, which has about 23 mats, along with the Safe Harbour Society’s overflow facility in the Cannery Row building was announced Mar. 23 by the provincial government.

“From day one, The Mustard Seed has been strictly adhering to AHS guidelines. We feel very fortunate to be working so closely with them because we are shelter operators, not medical professionals,” says Byron Bradley, Managing Director for Central Alberta.

“These are people that are unhoused and experiencing homelessness, so they don’t have many of the luxuries you and I have. We offer alongside their mat as much dignity as possible, and we’re treating them with a high level of respect. We’re hearing that they’re sleeping very peacefully right now, and that they’re feeling like they’re being shown a lot of respect, some of them for the first time.”

Safe Harbour Executive Director Kath Hoffman says their new facility is housing upwards of 100 people with the ability to safely physical distance.

Until the new facility opened, their regular ATCO trailer facility was hosting up to 75 people at once, Hoffman says, and wasn’t healthy in terms of preventing the spread of COVID-19. Hoffman says time was running out for the trailer anyway, so the new space will do well to bridge the gap between now and whenever the city’s new $7 million shelter is completed.

“Our new location is huge. The people — including staff — coming into the shelter every day and night are screened for temperature,” says Hoffman. “We identify anyone who has symptoms, we isolate them temporarily in a separate space, and then the community system of referral and supports for suspected COVID-19 cases kicks in.”

Asked about the idea of using hotels for the city’s homeless, Hoffman doesn’t believe that’s a practical way to go.

‘The model of operation that works the best, to keep people on-site through the night, is the way we are doing it, with staff in the building monitoring people,” Hoffman explains, also noting an increase in people possibly experiencing withdrawal. “If we had them in hotel rooms, that would not be feasible.”

The other interesting aspect, she says, is the homeless population’s mentality towards the pandemic.

“They’re just like the rest of us. Some are and some aren’t paying attention to what they need to be doing. But this state of uncertainty, anxiety and stress that we all have by getting a small taste of not knowing our world anymore is something those people live with every day. There are a lot of people trying hard to do what they can, and there’s a lot of compliance on the screening, but our biggest concern is overdose.”

Hoffman says individuals’ belongings are stored separately from them when at the facility, but admits drugs will still get in.