Advocates call for more shelter beds as cold weather sets in, region says it knows there aren't enough

As the cold weather sets in, the Region of Waterloo says it's opening a new emergency overnight shelter in Kitchener to help keep people off the street and staff are asking for more money in the 2025 budget for extreme and winter weather preparations.

But advocates say more still needs to be done.

The temporary shelter at 84 Frederick Street is being run by an organization called Services and Housing In the Province, or SHIP. There are 37 beds available with the capacity to add seven more beds during extreme weather conditions.

Including the temporary shelter, there are currently 589 shelter spaces at various locations in Waterloo region's cities.

But a point-in-time count done on Oct. 22 found more than 2,300 people in the community are homeless — a number that has doubled in three years.

David Alton, a lived expertise facilitator at the Social Development Centre, says the problem with opening more shelters is there appear to be barriers at the regional level.

"One barrier is a jurisdictional barrier," they said. The centre has asked if regionally owned buildings like the one at 150 Main St. in Cambridge or part of the regional headquarters building at 150 Frederick St. in Kitchener could be used to house people.

"These are regional properties, so you'd think that the region would be able to leverage these properties to meet the crisis. But unfortunately ... control and access over those properties is not determined by the community services department," Alton said.

Alton says that means bureaucracy has made it difficult to test out new ideas.

"Lower principalities are not internalizing their responsibility to our unsheltered neighbors," they said.

"Neither is the facilities department or the public health department or the health and safety department, even Grand River Transit. Community services and partners have asked Grand River Transit buses to run overnight. But GRT is putting too many barriers to actually make that happen."

Peter Sweeney, the commissioner of community services at the Region of Waterloo, says they know 552 beds is not enough to help everyone.

"We are in a situation where we have more people who are homeless than we have supports for, which is why we see a rise in encampments in the last number of years," he said.

"The inflow into homelessness in this community continues to increase and will continue to increase," Sweeney said. "Until we have the proper amount of affordable and transitional housing, we are going to struggle with homelessness in this community for a long time."