VICTORIA -- A new rotating homeless shelter will be opening in the Oceanside region of Vancouver Island, providing guests with food and bedding this chilly winter season.
The new temporary shelter will be housed at seven different community churches in the area, with each one opening its doors to those in need for one night during the week.
Each church will provide eight beds for people to sleep in and two daily meals. A shuttle will also take people from a pickup point at the Mt. Arrowsmith Salvation Army at 186 Alberni Hwy. to wherever the shelter is located that night at 5 p.m. daily.
The churches will begin operating as shelters starting Thursday, Dec. 19, and will be open from 6 p.m. to 7:15 a.m. each night. The temporary shelter program will run until the end of February 2020.
The seven Oceanside churches participating in the shelter program are:
• Arbutus Grove Reformed Church – 170 W Hirst Ave.
• Knox United Church – 345 Pym St.
• Oceanside Community Church – 1420 Alberni Hwy.
• Catholic Church of The Ascension – 887 Wembley Rd.
• Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church – 550 Pym St.
• Christian Fellowship Centre Church – 825 Village Way.
• Anglican Church of St. Anne/St. Edmund – 407 Wembley Rd.
Earlier this month, the Anglican Church of St. Anne and St. Edmund was one of the first churches in the area to open its doors to homeless people for the winter.
Since Dec. 6, the church – which is 125 years old and the oldest log-style church on Vancouver Island – has been offering a 'pray and stay' vigil, which has averaged six to 14 people each night.
"I really wrestled with the fact that there was no safe place where people could just be safe, warm and fed," said Christine Muise, the priest associate for St. Anne and St. Edmund church in Parksville.
Earlier this year, in July, the province also finished construction on a 52 unit modular housing project that is designed support people who are experiencing homelessness in Parksville.
