Dartmouth Shelter making everyone feel welcome this winter
Posted Dec 21, 2019 05:29:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Dartmouth Shelter Society started after founding member Warren Wesson realized that while Halifax has several homeless shelters, the other side of the harbour had none.
The shelter, Frank Mackay House at 152 Windmill Road, officially opened its doors for the first time on May 31 this year.
“We did have high hopes of getting our doors open for last winter, but we wanted to get it right,” says Wesson.
Wesson tells NEWS 95.7's The Todd Veinotte Show that being able to open in the summer allowed them to work out kinks in the system.
“It was good to have the long days and the warm weather to work out what we were doing,” he adds.
Now, as the shelter's first holiday season approaches, Wesson says their team has grown exponentially.
“It's absolutely awesome,” he says. “Six months ago we were at around eight to 10 volunteers and now we're over 80, almost 90 volunteers.”
Wesson says the overnight shelter is mainly used by people who don't have secure housing. He says that due to Halifax's low vacancy rate, more and more people are staying in shelters like the Frank Mackay House.
“We have a lot of people that are in line for apartments, working people who simply can't afford what's going on right now in town,” he explains. “And it's a situation that's probably going to get worse.”
The shelter board member and volunteer says that low income or affordable housing is especially hard to come by.
“We haven't built any rooming houses in Dartmouth for a couple of decades or more. We have an extreme shortage of low-income housing, let alone affordable housing,” he adds.
This weekend, Frank Mackay house will hold its first Christmas Tree Decorating Party, complete with snacks and carolling.
“We're going to have people in from all over Dartmouth helping out,” Wesson says.
The event is partly intended as a fundraiser, but is also just an opportunity to get the community together.
“We have people bringing their children in and it's amazing that we've got kids from ages nine years old to adults, all ages are coming in and helping,” says Wesson. “It's a real community effort.”
Wesson says that opening the shelter has allowed him to see the good in the community coming together to help others.
“It feels really good to me to see the community take ownership of the issue and it gives me faith that maybe at some point we'll find the will to move forward on this housing issue,” he says.
The shelter has had plenty of donations this winter already, but that they are always in need of bus tickets, socks and underwear, and non-perishable food items.
“You can never go wrong with Tim Horton's cards or McDonald's cards,” he adds.
The event takes place on Sunday, December 22 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
