Our Place temporarily closes drop-in service due to safety concerns
Our Place Society in Victoria, which offers supports to homeless and vulnerable people, suspended its drop-in service on Thursday due to safety concerns.
Our Place director of services, Jordan Cooper, says the drop-in service was closed for the day due to "hostile behaviour" at the community centre on Wednesday.
"After some conversations yesterday, some tough conversations, we decided it would be prudent to shut down our drop-in space for the day, today," he told CTV News on Thursday.
"We've been facing a bit of an uptick in hostile behaviour, some violence towards staff, so we really thought we needed to take a minute to just see how we were doing things operationally at the drop-in," he said.
Cooper added that the centre was looking at ways "to make sure that it's a safe and healthy place for people coming to access services."
He says there's no one reason why things feel increasingly unsafe at the community centre, though the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of supports elsewhere are likely contributing factors.
"We've done a good job recently of getting people housed, but there's still lots of people here who still aren't housed who have very complex needs and they're left to kind of fend for themselves," he said.
"There's a lot more desperation out there right now, I believe," he added.
One of the ways Our Place is looking at improve drop-in safety is by updating its walk-in policy, Cooper says.
Previously, Our Place had a "wide open" door for anyone who wanted to use its courtyard or indoor drop-in services. Now, the centre may scale back that policy and have "more of a secure entry," said Cooper.
Other services at Our Place remain open Thursday, such as washroom and shower facilities, and meals, including breakfast, lunch and dinner that can be picked up at the building's gate.
The drop-in service is expected to reopen on Friday morning.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Thanks to wildfires, air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Toronto family doctor who called patient's body 'perfect' suspended for 3 months: tribunal
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.