I’m still getting used to Winnipeg. I was recently told that when it’s -15 C here, it is a nice day.

You might laugh at this, but when I lived in Calgary and Toronto we’d consider those temperatures to be a bitter deep freeze.

While I was coming to grips with last week’s cold snap, many people turned their attention to the needs of the homeless. All wanted to know how the cold weather affects the homeless.

Obviously, if people are outside for long periods of time, the cold can be deadly.

As they do every year, the Salvation Army has set up a cold weather contingency plan that sees the largest shelter in the city open up additional beds if temperatures dip below -20 with the wind chill.

Sometimes they even open up on warmer days. God bless them for that.

But the biggest effect the cold weather has on people is not physical. It’s mental.

We often get caught in the perspective that if someone has three meals a day, clothing and shelter for the night, they are well taken care of.

Yes, they will physically survive, but their mental health might take a beating.

I’d like to describe a regular day of someone who uses the services of a homeless shelter like Siloam Mission.

It starts at 6:45 a.m. You’ve spent the night in a dormitory shelter with 110 other people. You have no privacy or space to be alone ­— even the washrooms resemble those of public restrooms.

Three feet away from you sleeps another person you may or may not know.

Chances are they’ve been snoring or coughing all night. Within a 20-foot diameter, there’s another 10 folks in the same situation.

By 7:30 a.m., the shelter closes and you pick up everything you own to head to the main floor drop-in centre for coffee and breakfast.

By 9 a.m., another 200 people who come in for a meal join you. Now there are 300 people sharing 160 chairs.

The dance begins with people standing in line for breakfast while others eat their meal and get up the moment they’re finished to let someone else have their seat.

It’s cold outside and people decide to stay in. The place starts to get crowded. Really crowded.

Again, you have no space to be alone and are always on your guard because anything might happen.

At 8:30 p.m., you line up to get a spot in the shelter and once again share your room with 110 other people.

You step into the shower and hope your neighbours are quieter tonight so you can get a good night’s rest.

Repeat the same procedure for a week, a month, sometimes a year, and it’s not hard to see how living in a shelter can grind someone down.

To a large degree, shelters are refugee camps for the vulnerable of society — they are stressful and the likelihood of people getting out is low.

The solution?

We need safe housing where people can let their guard down and begin to rebuild their life beyond just existing.

Hopefully one day I can write a column about that dream becoming reality.

— Floyd Perras is the executive director of Siloam Mission.

SUN Article