As autumn’s evening temperatures begin to drop across Sarnia-Lambton, shelter staff and local outreach teams continue their work to get unhoused residents off the streets and into safe, warm spaces.
The County of Lambton's Homelessness Prevention and Social Planning Manager Matt Joosse said area shelters are currently at 65 per cent occupancy.
"The shelters are run through the Inn of the Good Shepherd Lodge and they are a strong partner that we rely on," said Joosse. "Weather is always on our mind and as the cooler weather comes, we're expecting occupancy of the shelters to go up to 90 or 95 per cent."
Joosse said bed capacity is monitored daily and the number of individuals experiencing homelessness, including those on the streets, in transitional shelter, or precariously housed, are tracked in real-time.
"Right now we have 341 names on the By-Name List (BNL), but that doesn't mean that we have 341 homeless people or people experiencing homelessness," he said. "They're a part of the whole continuum right now. So, out of that number, there's about 214 people that are chronically homeless."
Anyone experiencing homelessness or precariously housed is encouraged to visit the lodge on Confederation Street first.
"They use our By-Name List to determine where people will go," Joosse said. "So, the best point of contact is to go to the lodge and all of the providers use the same information system."
Joosse is predicting this winter's shelter usage to be similar to the past few years, because the number of names on the BNL has remained stable.
"The reason is, we need more affordable housing," he said. "If I really had to hammer home one message, I would say that in our 10 year Housing and Homelessness Plan it identified that affordable and supportive housing is the number one need right now. We really need places for clients to go to get them out of the shelter system, get them off the streets. So really, all effort should be put forward to increase the amount of affordable housing."
In addition to services offered at the shelters, Joosse said their outreach team visits individuals experiencing homelessness and can be reached directly at [email protected].
