Rapid action urged on winter shelter plan

Stephen Sparkes knows all the tricks for surviving outside in subzero temperatures. He's been doing it every winter for the last few years.

Cardboard or a mat keeps him insulated from the frigid ground. He uses a thick sleeping bag, sometimes more than one. He tries to break the wind and keep dry. On Thursday evening, he was bundled up under a shop-front alcove. On the coldest days, he looks for a vent blowing warm air.

But Sparkes worries about others who don't seem prepared for Ottawa winters.

"I've seen people out here with nothing, in barely even a jacket or T-shirt," he said. "It's too cold ... it's inhumane to leave people out here like that."

The city now has a strategy to ensure that doesn't happen that relies on three makeshift shelters in recreation centres, with staff now authorized to move in bunk beds to increase capacity. If that isn't enough, council asked staff to pursue "sprung shelters," essentially big military-style tents.

That reminds Chris Arsenault of his army days.

"I've slept in the marquee tents many a times," he said. "Oh, I loved it. But then again, I was also 17 at the time, and we had military sleeping bags."

Arsenault is now staying at the Ottawa Mission on Daly Street, which is so crowded that Arsenault said it took him eight days to get in. He'd been staying in a park for two months, he explained, after he was evicted from his place in Vanier.

Like Sparkes, he knows how to endure the winter. He's hitchhiked across Canada in the cold. Preparation is everything.

"Unless you got the gear, you're gonna die," Arsenault said. "It's that simple."

City in 'crisis mode' with 100s believed to be sleeping outside

He fears that's exactly what's going to happen this winter if the city doesn't move fast to open up those emergency spaces. The city estimates there are now 260 people sleeping outside, but Arsenault sees all the sleeping bags in soup kitchen lineups, and figures the number is much higher.

"It should be done by the weekend, if you want the honest truth," he said. "That's how quick they need these places."

Arsenault knows people have frozen to death in the past. According to data from the Office of the Chief Coroner, there were seven people who died from hypothermia in Ottawa between 2018 and 2020, though it's not known how many of those victims were homeless. There were four hypothermia deaths between 2021 and 2022, though numbers for those years aren't yet final.

Peter Tilley, the Mission's CEO, remembers a prominent Ottawa case from 2001. Tilley said sprung structures and bunk beds in community centres are far from ideal, but they're better than leaving people to die.

"We want people in apartments," Tilley said. "But let's get through this winter and then let's get our heads together and move quickly by the spring to find solutions, so we're not going through this again next year."

Kaite Burkholder Harris, executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness, said Ottawa is now in "crisis mode."

"The city is trying their best to make sure nobody freezes to death," she said. "That is the number one goal: to make sure that they have enough spaces in the shelter system so that nobody is left outside."

While she agrees those measures are desperately needed, she hopes tents and arenas don't become a lasting stopgap in place of permanent housing and homelessness prevention. Sprung structures are expensive, and they last a long time.

"If you create the spaces, they will be full," she said. "We keep investing in these temporary measures."

Besides, there will always be some people who choose the streets over shelters or tents, even at the risk of freezing to death. 

"There's reasons people don't go into institutions," Burkholder Harris said.

Crowding, danger, love of nature keep some outside

Sparkes doubts he'd head to a sprung structure this year, even in the depths of winter. He fears it would turn into an overcrowded drug den with exactly the same dangers that keep him away from emergency shelters.

"I just don't feel safe around a lot of people like that. I feel it's just better for my mental health, I guess, when I'm by myself," he said.

"I usually sleep under the stars. ... I love nature. I see a lot of animals come by."

Still, he might consider an arena bunk bed on the very coldest days of the year.

Raphael Coté said the idea of a bunk bed in an arena sounds "awesome." It's certainly a lot better than where he is right now.

"It would be perfect," he said. "The winter's coming around. People are going to be cold and people need help on the streets."

Coté is now staying in the Mission waiting room, sleeping in a chair with the lights on. Sleeping is an exaggeration, since he's only gotten a few hours of that all week. 

He said a real solution to homelessness needs to focus on providing good jobs. Arsenault said the city needs genuinely affordable housing or higher payments for people living on disability supports. Sparkes said people need better mental health supports and a basic livable income sufficient to cover the cost of rent.

Burkholder Harris worries that crisis investments could take resources away from real solutions. She said there are rapid rehousing tactics that could get people out of shelters quickly. Above all, she said, governments need to take action to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place.

That should include support for diversion programs, she said, including for organizations like Matthew House that prevents refugee claimants from ending up in shelters.

"What we're seeing right now is this huge unprecedented demand of people coming into the system that is unlike any year we've ever had before," Burkholder Harris said.

"I'm just not sure all the additional shelter spaces in the world are going to make a difference."