Kelowna's Gospel Mission

(CARLI BERRY / iNFOnews.ca)

With an emergency shelter not opening as temperatures drop this year, the executive director of a Kelowna homeless shelter is worried about people sleeping on the streets.

Kelowna’s Gospel Mission, a homeless shelter on Leon Avenue, held its annual turkey dinner, providing roughly 300 meals to the city’s homeless, Oct. 11.

Executive director Carmen Rempel said the turkey dinner during Thanksgiving looks different this year due to the pandemic. There are 60 people staying at the Leon Avenue shelter, as well 50 at its Doyle Avenue shelter who will be provided with meals. Workers are also taking 80 meals to those who are currently sheltering outside and meals are also being provided to supportive housing and recovery homes in the city, she said.

The dinners are prepped well in advance of the day, so during Thanksgiving, “it’s like a well-oiled machine,” she said.

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“Our minds are very focused on the wintertime now. Our team is coming up with some creative solutions about how to be able to give people who are sheltering outside warm places to be but the reality is our city needs more shelter spaces for this winter and at this point, there aren’t any,” Rempel said.

The number of people sleeping outside continues to change, but the last count by the city two weeks was 84 people. “That number may drop as people find places to be as it gets colder out but we could use at minimum another 40-bed shelter in town for the winter,” she said.

The emergency shelter Welcome Inn will not be returning this year which leads a void, she said.

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“It’s very concerning,” she said.

Turkey meals are offered each year by the Gospel Mission as holidays can be difficult for those who are staying in shelters. They are often experiencing grief and loss and may be separated from their families, she said.

“We become a family at the Gospel Mission and we put out this big fancy day… and we’re grateful for what we do have together,” Rempel said, adding the Thanksgiving event is one of the shelter’s biggest fundraisers of the year.

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