With milder weather in the forecast, officials are turning their attention to having a plan in place for warming centres next winter.
The city provided funding for an overnight warming centre at the Orillia Community Church. Since it opened Dec. 26, it has operated 25 nights when the temperature has been -15 degrees Celsius or colder.
It is a pilot project, but there has been plenty of discussion at the city council table and beyond about the need to have a permanent plan in place.
“The fact that we’ve done 25 nights really speaks to the need for it,” said Coun. Pat Hehn.
She said a meeting between the City of Orillia, City of Barrie and County of Simcoe will take place in the spring.
“We’ll look at what we learned this year and what we need to do to plan for warming centres next (winter),” she said, “because it is not a problem that’s going away.”
Cooling centres will also be part of the discussion, she added.
One lesson learned is the need to provide a warm place for people during the hours when neither a daytime nor overnight warming centre is open.
City council recently approved the creation of daytime emergency warming centres on weekends at the Orillia Recreation Centre and the Orillia Public Library when the temperature is -15 C or colder.
The warming centre hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays at the rec centre and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays at the library. However, the overnight warming centre operates from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., leaving some with no place to go until the daytime warming centres open.
The city wanted to see if the Lighthouse shelter could make some of its space available as a warming centre, but it was determined that was not possible due to COVID-19 measures.
Michael Bells, pastor at the Orillia Community Church, said he was willing to open the building from 7 to 8:30 a.m. and 5 to 9 p.m. to fill those gaps.
He made that offer, as well as the original one that led to the creation of a warming centre at the church, seeing it as “a no-brainer decision.”
“We see ourselves as part of the bigger Orillia community. Having this large space available downtown, it just made sense,” he said. “We take seriously the middle word in our name: community.”
The only issue with covering the gap times was staffing.
There is not enough funding for more staff, so Hehn took part in a meeting Wednesday to see if other agencies had volunteers available for those times, but that wasn’t possible.
The goal, she said, is to come up with a plan to address the issue before next winter.
