North Bay’s low-barrier shelter to reopen early August
The low-barrier homeless shelter on Chippewa Street in North Bay is reopening at the beginning of August.
The shelter closed at the beginning of summer due to health and safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mark King, District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board chair, confirmed the city's shelter will be open again Aug. 1.
"It was the best possible method that we could use at that time,” said King.
He said people accessing services at the shelters were temporarily put in motels where they had their own private room due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the homeless community.
"In the past what happened at the low-barrier shelter when it was open and dealing with the COVID outbreak through the whole system, paramedics did actually attend and did immunize people," said King.
The Crisis Centre North Bay oversees operations at the low-barrier shelter. CTV News reached out to the crisis centre, however, our calls were not returned.
"The crisis centre is ready to move into the low-barrier shelter," said King.
The North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit never declared a COVID-19 outbreak in the homeless population due to a perceived spike in stigma. However, those who oversaw a tent city were told by the health unit to keep the encampment open due to several COVID-19 cases spreading in the homeless population.
"We did our best to contain the outbreak but we had to let them out every so often so they could get their methadone and stuff like that," said Terri-Lynn Stevens, HOPE’s outreach manager who helped oversee the tent city operations.
Stevens said she hopes reopening the shelter will help resolve some issues for homeless people.
"It put a lot of stress on them,” she said, referring to when it had to close. “They denied people from going into the low-barrier for ridiculous reasons and unfortunately it did create quite an issue that we had to resolve."
King said he hopes health unit staff and paramedics will be on-site to vaccinate more homeless people at the shelter in hopes of avoiding any future outbreaks.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Competition bureau finds 'substantial' anti-competitive effects with proposed Bunge-Viterra merger
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.