By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
People who are experiencing homelessness this winter will be able to warm up and contact support services at warming centres (haltes-chaleur) in Farnham and Cowansville this winter.
The warming centres, in their third year of operation, will be open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. whenever the wind chill drops below -15. The Farnham centre will be in its usual location at 525, rue Saint-Édouard; the Cowansville centre, after two years on rue Albert, is at a new location at 217 rue Oxford. The centres are run in partnership with the Maison des Jeunes de Farnham and funded by various sources including the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS, the Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins foundation, the MRC Brome-Missisquoi, local elected officials, Centraide and individual donors. The centres opened for the first time this year on Dec. 5.
The centres are not shelters with beds, but people visiting the centres will be able to rest, stock up on warm clothes, have a meal or a snack and speak with an outreach worker, according to Tania Szymanski, community development and immigration co-ordinator at the MRC of Brome-Missisiquoi. “There will always be an outreach worker asking about people’s needs in terms of mental health, medical care and food security and bringing them toward services. [The warming centres are] a pretext to intervene and help people.”
“In the past, we opened the shelters at -20 during the day, but there are already organizations that welcome people during the day, and we saw there was more of a need at night,” she added. “We don’t know how many nights we’ll be open – it depends on the temperature.”
Szymanski said she had seen rising demand for the centres’ services since they first opened two years ago. “There are more and more people [in the region] who are in situations of either hidden or visible homelessness,” she said. “It’s definitely something we need to work on.”
There is no permanent homeless shelter in Cowansville or Farnham. The project has a transport budget to bring people in need of a shelter bed to Granby, Sherbrooke or Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, but Szymanski said that was not an option for everyone. “The [warming centres] help, but they aren’t the only solution,” she said. “We want to house people in Brome-Missisquoi, because not everyone wants to leave the region.” She said the MRC is exploring the idea of establishing a shelter, but she expects funding and determining the right model for the shelter to take time.
If you or someone you know need a warm place to spend the night in an emergency, check the Halte-chaleur Farnham & Cowansville Facebook page to see whether the warming centres are open. No reservations are needed. To donate money or supplies, contact the Maison des Jeunes de Farnham.