A small but passionate group gathered Saturday outside Guelph City Hall to urge action on the city’s growing homeless problem.
The Keeping Our Friends Warm event drew about 30 people who urged the city to take immediate action.
“This is not a problem that five-year plans will fix. This is happening right now. This is happening tonight,” said organizer Kate Nixon.
“This is a do-or-die moment. People will die this winter.’
Nixon heads the Facebook group Your Downtown Guelph Friends, a new group aimed at doing whatever it can to help marginalized people in the downtown core, including providing food and other donations.
Advocating for access to housing for Guelph’s growing homeless population is part of what they do. First an foremost they want to see an overnight shelter established in the city.
Keeping Our Friends Warm means three things: advocacy, support and materials, Nixon said.
“Our current shelter system is inadequate,” Nixon said.
“With limited amounts of beds, inaccessible shelter locations and red-tape procedures, such as having to reserve beds beforehand and having curfews earlier than 8 p.m., which makes it impossible for people to get back in time for dinner programs makes it extremely evident that there’s extreme issues.
Nixon said that “we have allowed the dehumanization of our most vulnerable” and urged the city as a whole to take advantage of the available space, from empty buildings to church basements, to give people a warm place to sleep.
“This isn’t a matter of money, this is a matter of whether or not we care enough to do something,” she said.
“These people are human. They do deserve community support. It is their right.”
The noon event collected donated clothing and other items and heard from a number of speakers, including Donnie Hay, a Guelph man fighting for a medical detox centre to be established here.
“If the city starts to heal, you will see the benefits that will come to this city,” said Hay.
Hannah Derue urged people to speak up and advocate at a policy level.
“This is a systems problem, this isn’t just a Guelph problem, as much as it does feel like it. This is across the province that we are seeing this issue,” Derue said.
Derue urged people to speak up to their local political representatives, as did another speaker, Susan Watson, who pointed out that Guelph City Council is currently in budget deliberations making spending decisions that could impact the homeless situation in the city.
