City sounding the alarm over the city’s homelessness crisis ahead of winter

The Heron Community Centre is now open as a shelter for newcomers. The city says the shelters are facing “unprecedented” pressure. (Leah Larocque/CTV News)

Ottawa’s mayor says the city is facing a homelessness emergency crisis that requires emergency solutions.

The city is initiating some short term solutions heading into the colder months that includes using bunk beds at community centre shelters and looking into the possibility of acquiring a military-like tent to boost capacity to make sure people have a place to go.

“We are trying to ensure there is capacity to support people who may be unsheltered or living outside to come in and have shelter if they so chose,” said Clara Freire, the city’s general manager of community and social services.

“Our goal is to bring or convince as many as possible to come in during the winter. We don’t want anyone to live outside during the winter."

Freire says the city’s options include using existing facilities and augmenting their capacity

Bunk beds is one solution.

Bunk beds will be used at a new makeshift shelter at the Heron Road Community Centre which opened Thursday and will have the capacity for about 200 people.

Ottawa councillor Marty Carr is part of the city’s newly formed task force to address emergency shelter usage in the capital, as officials warn the shelter system will be "overwhelmed" this winter.

“One of the biggest things that we are doing in the immediate term is that we just opened the Heron Community centre to serve as a shelter for people and it is going to be newcomers who will have their first home here," Carr said.

“Typically when we use community centres, we use cots or mats but we have transitioned to using bunk beds and that is so everyone has a space to stay and it helps improve capacity so we are not putting facilities all over the place."

The city estimates nearly 300 people are sleeping outside every night. Ottawa’s brutal winter could be dangerous for those with no shelter.

Another possibility the city is looking into is acquiring a military-like tent, similar to the one outside of the Civic Hospital that helps with overflow.

Freire says the city is hoping to get the structure in place as soon as possible.

"It is customizable from the inside and we are hoping that if we can acquire one we can get it up and running by the end of the winter, or at least next winter," she said.

It is not clear where the structure would go.

“We don’t want to put people in tents. That is not ideal, but given the crisis we are facing, we have to look at these solutions and we are looking at acquiring a sprung structure,” Carr said.

“We need to make sure that people have a place to stay and they are not sleeping on the streets."

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe told reporters after this week’s city council meeting that migration is contributing to the pressure on the shelter system and long-term solutions require federal government funding.

Freire says the city is working on long-term solutions.

“We want to make sure the public knows we are doing everything we can to support people who area living unsheltered," she said.