THUNDER BAY - With temperatures dropping and winter just around the corner, a pivotal service for some of the city’s most vulnerable is back on the road.
The Thunder Bay Shelter House SOS van began operations again on Monday after being suspended since last spring.
“Since March, since COVID hit, we have been working with doing an isolation overflow shelter with triage and our van has been used for that for the last few months,” said Thunder Bay Shelter House executive director Michelle Jordan. “It was really important to get that shelter going to keep people safe in the community.”
The SOS program, or street outreach service, operates between 2 p.m. and 2 a.m. daily and assists homeless and at-risk people with supplies and transportation to safe and warm locations.
The program was suspended in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Jordan said new safety protocols are in place to keep staff and clients safe.
“COVID complicates everything that we do,” she said. “That is going to be very different. We have to protect our staff and our clients. We have plexiglass installed and teams are properly trained in PPE. Also cleaning the van after every transport is very important.”
In September, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 175 and 633 donated a Mercedes sprinter van to the Thunder Bay Shelter House SOS program.
That van will continue to be used for transportation and triage services.
“With the new van that we got donated in September, that allowed us to continue that work and now bring our SOS team back,” Jordan said. “It’s wintertime and it’s really cold and people need to get into safe spaces so it’s really important to get our SOS van back on the road.”
When the COVID-19 situation begins to calm down, Jordan said Shelter House will look at adding the new van to the SOS program, but for now the existing van will be back on the streets.
“We are going to keep the same SOS van that we had previous just because the signage, people recognize the van,” Jordan said. “I think it’s really important to keep it to the same van.”
On Monday, Shelter House also launched its annual holiday campaign, the Gift of Warmth. The campaign will help support Shelter House programs, including SOS and the goal is once again $200,000.
But Jordan said she understands that it may be more difficult to give this year, but there are other ways to contribute aside from monetary donations.
“We know some people may not be able to give like they do every year but people can give in other ways like with time or volunteering,” she said.
For more information and to donate, visit the Thunder Bay Shelter House website.
