The City of Victoria is funding a new daytime warming centre through the end of March.
The centre opened Feb. 1 at 926 Pandora Ave., a city-owned building slated for development, and is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Mayor Marianne Alto said the warming centre, with capacity for 40 people at a time, is meant to address a lack of daytime spaces where people who are unhoused can go inside and escape winter. Most shelters close early in the morning and while some people have access to programs in the day that take them inside, not everyone does.
“So the question then is … what do you do if you don’t have a place to go? And you literally have to wander for the entire daytime before the shelters open again at night. It’s a pretty stressful place to be,” she said.
The city has been working toward the creation of a daytime shelter since November, and tried to work with other partners, but has ended up doing the work on its own, Alto said. It’s the first time the city has funded a day shelter of this kind, she said.
The city plans to invoice the province for the $300,000 cost, which is coming out of the city’s contingency budget for now, she said.
“We would appreciate a contribution, no doubt, because… this appears to be an emerging pattern where municipalities are stepping in where gaps appear,” Alto said.
The warming centre is pet-friendly and people are allowed to bring their belongings, which helps to make it accessible for people who carry a tent and other important items with them. Some people living outside fear they’ll lose their belongings if they leave them behind to go to a shelter.
The city tapped Solid Outreach Society, a grassroots organization staffed mostly by people with lived experience of drug use, to run the warming centre.
The space has been busy since it opened late last week, with about 140 visits each day, and numbers are expected to grow as more people become aware of the warming centre, said Fred Cameron, a senior manager at Solid.
Those using the space are grateful to have somewhere to go during the day, he said. Some people don’t feel comfortable using other services, but they trust Solid staff because they have similar lived experience.
There are fewer tents and people camped outside on the 900-block of Pandora Avenue since the warming centre opened, Cameron said.
“I think the entire community is going to notice very quickly that this is having an impact on the block,” he said.
There are still tents on the street, however, and more people without a place to go, Cameron said.
