After years of fundraising and hard work, River City Vineyard (RCV) has nearly completed its shelter expansion to house an additional 16 women and 26 men.
The expansion project included the women's sleeping area, a women's washroom, a universal washroom, a men's washroom, and hallways. The men's side of the shelter is 98 per cent completed.
Pastoral Team Leader George Esser said a completion date is unknown at this point as they're waiting on a few final reports.
At this time, there are no plans for a grand opening ceremony.
Esser said the community has responded well to the expansion by donating bedding and clothing. Items, such as feminine hygiene products, are always needed.
An update of the project was emailed to various councillors, community organizations, and media on Monday.
"This project has had several budget overruns due to 'old building discoveries', COVID material cost increases, and window and other contractor rework issues," read an email from Esser. "The real issue with cost, rework, and overruns is a City Building department, a fire department, an architect, an engineer, thousands of regulations, and an old building trying to meet very stringent codes. We also used a lot of 'shelter residents' and 'former shelter residents' to help contract the work which probably cost us a bit more than using professional contractors (which through COVID, you could not obtain.)"
As stated in the email, the total cost of the project over four years was more than $1 million. Most of the expenses have been paid for, except for a small loan of $45,000 and a bill for $55,000.
Esser said it's hoped that donations and fundraising efforts will help pay off the remaining costs.
"Our shelter receives no money from the county for our shelter. They have told us they don’t want us to expand as they have a “housing first” policy and want to get all the homeless into permanent housing," read the email. "We agree in principle, but our experience tells us that there are many homeless people who cannot survive in a permanent home."
Esser said thanks to grant funding from the United Way, a security firm has been hired to help keep the peace at the shelter.
"That security company is going to help with, just the nature of some of the people who are going to come, especially the males," said Esser. "With the females, we're going to have a no drug policy but with the males, we're probably not going to have that, we're probably going to let whoever needs a place in. So we're going to have paid security help us with that."
The email touted RCV as being a drug-free facility. The shelter does not allow drugs into the building, but they are sometimes snuck in by individuals.
When asked why men would not be tested for drugs, Esser referenced the current need.
"We may eventually go to drug testing, we're not sure. It's always hard to know what to do," he said. "Our motto is 'come as you are, you'll be loved' so when we check people because they're on drugs... we're kind of conflicted with that but we realize it's better for people overall. So we still want to have a place that we can still say 'come as you are, you'll be loved' but we're just trying to get it so that we can really help people - maximize helping people to be unstuck."
RCV is located at the intersection of Mitton Street North and Maria Street.