St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church partners with The Working Centre and Region of Waterloo to launch emergency overnight seasonal shelter site
Kitchener, ON - A new partnership between St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, The Working Centre, and the Region of Waterloo, has been forged to address an urgent community need for temporary shelter, facilitating the launch of an interim overnight shelter for displaced individuals through the coming winter months.
Launched last Sunday evening in a multi-purpose area of St. Andrew’s, this core area centre will provide a welcoming place of overnight shelter and respite for up to 50 unsheltered community members.
Joe Mancini, Director of The Working Centre recognizes the importance of this initiative:
“This is a vital project that provides a seven day a week evening shelter that combines staffing and community volunteers. This cooperative model will expand shelter options during the cold winter nights.”
Bob Courtney, member of the Local Mission Initiatives committee at St. Andrew’s, is thankful that the church can meet this urgent community need:
“St. Andrew’s has a lengthy tradition of reaching out to those in need outside our doors, in keeping with our faith and beliefs. I am humbled to see how our community has again rallied on short notice to be hosts.”
Karen Redman, Regional Chair comments:
“We are grateful for the continued collaboration with community partners to add shelter spaces and services for those experiencing homelessness across our community.”
The facility will employ Working Centre staff on the front lines, with community volunteers providing ancillary services including meal service. cleanup, and sorting of donations. St. Andrew’s is appealing to the community for fully vaccinated volunteers to fill
6-9 AM and 6-9 PM shifts. Please email your name and contact info to shelter@standrewskw.com and we will contact you.
Donations of winter clothing items and blankets will be gratefully accepted, and pickup and drop-off can be arranged by emailing shelter@standrewskw.com.
This initiative is an interim step in response to a local government and social agency sourced survey this fall indicating a recent rise in long term unsheltered homelessness in the Region of Waterloo.
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church is a faith community located in a historic facility at the corner of Queen and Weber St. in downtown Kitchener.
The Working Centre is a multiservice organization that has focused on food distribution, homelessness, housing, job searching and income support during the pandemic. The Working Centre prepares and serves over 600 meals through St. John’s Kitchen, motels and throughout our social housing projects. The Working Centre provides housing to over 250 people through our multi-unit social housing projects, at the University Avenue Dorms and motels. St. John’s Kitchen supports 400 people each day with meals, a daily drop in, showers, laundry and public washrooms.
The Region of Waterloo provides more than 60 per cent of municipal services to a growing population of 630,000 people. We are committed to creating an inclusive, thriving and sustainable
community through innovative leadership and a range of services such as: public health, social services, planning, heritage, water supply, regional roads, waste management, ambulance service, rural libraries, public transit, community housing, emergency planning, Provincial Offences Courts and airport services.
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