The renovated 400-bed Herb Jamieson Center shelter is expected to open in October as temporary shelters close.

Article content

Edmonton’s shelter system will gain 250 beds as colder weather looms with the opening of the new $ 16 million Herb Jamieson Center expected in October.

Article content

No official opening date has been set for the 24/7 shelter with final construction touch-ups still underway, but when the renovated Hope Mission men’s shelter opens, it will provide 400 beds and access. to services like health care and addiction recovery. The shelter east of downtown is located at 10014 105A Ave. and closed its doors in late 2019 for the renovation project.

A current temporary shelter available 24/7 in the Spectrum building at the Northlands site will remain open until residents can make the proper transition to the new building. The Spectrum building has been in operation since the beginning of May with a capacity for about 150 people.

The new Herb Jamieson has many additions to better meet customer needs, including 100 more beds, large storage areas, and accessible sleeping arrangements for people with mobility issues. Perhaps the biggest change is a renewed focus on housing, said Tim Pasma, Hope Mission’s manager of homeless programming. He noted that there will be an accommodation center right in the center of the building for teams to work directly with those in the refuge spaces.

Article content

“We are really strengthening that program and having more conversations about the admission level as well so that everyone has conversations focused on housing,” Pasma said during a media visit to the new building Tuesday morning. “That will be one of the most important points of this refuge, at the end of the day we know that it begins with housing.”

More than 1,000 people have been made homeless since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, and Pasma said that is why the focus on housing is so important to ensure that people can recover as soon as possible. possible. There are currently 2,681 homeless people in Edmonton and 803 people have been housed in the last six months.

“It starts with an emergency shelter, but it also continues with other resources like housing or recovery programs, health support, mental health and addictions, so it is a very complex subject. Unfortunately more people are left homeless so we have to do more as a community and I think that just means that everyone should come together. “

Article content

The new building is on the site of the old shelter, built in the 1950s and then taken over by the government’s Hope Mission in 1992. Hope Mission received $ 4 million each from the provincial and federal governments and raised the other half through 4,595 individual donors. .

While the large shelter will add to the city’s current overnight capacity, it is still far less than the 1,160 spaces that were available last winter as a result of three temporary shelters in the city, including Tipinawâw at the Convention Center in Edmonton. Pasma said Hope Mission will only have 525 spaces available between its two sites when Herb Jamieson opens and has the capacity to provide 715 beds, but that would require additional resources and funding from the province.

In a statement to Postmedia, Edmonton city spokeswoman Carol Hurst said the province, responsible for funding emergency shelters, said there is adequate space in the winter shelter system. The city will be monitoring the situation and working on the winter emergency response in the event an extreme weather protocol needs to be implemented.

[email protected]

twitter.com/dustin_cook3