The Lighthouse emergency shelter has begun doing outreach work in the community to directly assist Orillia’s unhoused, vulnerable population.
The new three-month pilot project will provide hygiene products and harm reduction supplies to those in need, as the Lighthouse works to collect data about the local homeless population.
“It'll be everything from hygiene supplies, to some basic necessities like socks and underwear, track pants, t-shirts, those sorts of things. We will be doing some food and juice boxes a little bit, as well,” said Rosemary Petersen, administrative coordinator at the Lighthouse. “We’ll do a needle exchange out there, as well as offering Naloxone kits.”
The County of Simcoe recently provided the organization with $35,000 in funding to run the project through June 30.
The Lighthouse is carrying out the project with the help of numerous community partners, such as the Sharing Place, the City of Orillia, and the OPP.
“We were able to hire two outreach workers, we were able to lease a van, and we were able to get supplies in order to go out into the community – into encampments, on the street – to find out where people are living, to be able to support the city, bylaw, the OPP, and mostly just to make sure that people are safe and healthy,” said Linda Goodall, the executive director of The Lighthouse.
Goodall said the Lighthouse will be gathering data on the number of people experiencing homelessness in the city, their age and gender, as well as what supplies the population needs most, with the hope of connecting people with the resources they need.
“Most of it all comes down to figuring out housing, right? The Lighthouse itself, we have about 76 people on property, sleeping over every night … so it's part of the whole affordable housing strategy, in order to kind of get a count of who is out there, who needs housing, and how can we make that happen,” explained Goodall.
“Some people choose to be outdoors and that is their human right, so we want to be able to, at least, support them and make sure that they're healthy and they're safe,” she said.
Goodall said the Lighthouse has always planned to do community outreach work in Orillia, and if it can get funding beyond the pilot project, she would be happy to see the work continue.
“If we are able to get further funding to be able to support the issue around homelessness in our community, then we would absolutely,” she said. “We were always planning on doing outreach at some point (according to) our strategic plan. We weren't planning at the moment, because we are doing so much, but the opportunity came and we couldn't turn it down.”
Although the Lighthouse continues to accept volunteers at the shelter, Goodall said the community outreach project will be limited to Lighthouse staff.
