The Moncton Lions Club will become a 125-bed emergency shelter in late December to accommodate the city’s growing homeless population.
The province will finance the shelter, but specifics such as the exact cost are still being worked out.
The announcement comes less than a week after a homeless man was found dead in front of City Hall.
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Mayor Don Arnold said the center will need a lot of support staff.
“We need to make sure that there are prescribing physicians in this shelter, people who can meet people where they are … provide proper antibiotics if they need them, proper direction,” she said.
“We can’t keep people in a warehouse, we need to make sure we’re moving them along the spectrum and getting them out of this situation.”
The city is still determining which community agency will operate the shelter.
“We do not have an operator yet, so we have met with all of our community agencies that deal with individuals experiencing homelessness and we will work with them,” Moncton recreation director Jocelyn Cohoon told reporters Monday. Told. “It could be one, it could be a partnership.”
Vincent Merola, the city’s community development officer for social inclusion, said there are currently not enough supportive care workers to meet the current demand.
“Our system is very under-resourced,” he said in an interview on Monday.
“We are short of, and urgently need, prescribing physicians. In addition we are short of about 17 front-line workers, 30 case managers, social workers.”
The city is actively looking for a second location for an additional shelter.
Cohoon said they are considering other options, such as heated tents, if the city can’t find space.
“We will also look at what other buildings may be available in the community,” she said.
In an e-mailed statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Development told Global News on Monday that “key thinkers from various government departments, including Social Development, Health, Justice and Public Safety, and the Executive Council Office” will visit Moncton. Meeting with more front-line workers in the coming week “to take an in-depth look at the challenges, present and future, faced by people experiencing homelessness in Moncton.”
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