A temporary emergency shelter for Guelph’s homeless population is expanding its capacity in order to give people without a home a safe place to self-isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Twelve agencies in the royal city are coming together and creating a supported isolation centre for the homeless.
The director of primary health at the community health centre in Guelph, Melissa Kwiatkowski says due to anticipated demand, an interim site that opened in late March is expanding.
“As numbers start to peak, we’ll need to be able to move quickly and so we have everything we need here to be able to ramp up services if needed,” says Kwiatkowski.
The expansion will increase the capacity from three rooms to 27. Each room has a bed, window and sink to reduce the risk of transmission.
People using the site must be referred by Guelph General Hospital or a COVID-19 assessment centre and have either been diagnosed with COVID-19, experiencing symptoms or waiting for test results.
“We have nursing on site,” says the housing and stability manager for the county of Wellington housing services, Lori Richer. “We have addictions support on site and we have shelter workers that are here and then we have some on call support for mental health.”
Currently, the emergency space is housing four individuals.
When someone’s 14 days of self-isolation are complete, staff connects the person to other resources to stay safe for the remainder of the pandemic.
“Our ultimate goal is really working towards permanent housing solutions for people experiencing homelessness in our community,” says Richer.
