Sudbury homeless shelters offering warmth during extreme cold weather alert

Sudbury's homeless shelters are boosting efforts to ensure homeless people stay warm in the midst of frigid temperatures in the forecast over the next few days. 

The city is currently under an extreme cold weather alert, which was issued Wednesday. 

Salvation Army staff member Karen Hoeft said during the winter, homeless people often have very few places to go for warmth. 

• Homelessness in Sudbury rising

"They might have no loitering policies so you might have places where only if you consume or spend money can you be in certain places. What we perceive as indoor public spaces are actually privately owned," Hoeft said.

Lianne Bergeron is a co-ordinator of the Homelessness Network, a group of organizations that step up their efforts during extreme cold. For example, the Elgin Street Mission becomes an emergency warming centre and stays open 24 hours during an alert.

Bergeron said during cold weather alerts, the network also has a van that circles the city's downtown core to offer people rides to shelters.

"People who are homeless or living precariously have limited funds and a lot of times they don't have proper footwear for the cold temperatures, or proper clothing, mitts, scarves, hats," Bergeron said.

Frigid temperatures this weekend

Hoeft told CBC News that during the coldest days of the year, many homeless people are constantly on the move.

"There's a gap of a half an hour to an hour between some services, so sometimes we'll see people come in and stay warm in one of our buildings," she said.

"We'll see people come in and wait until the next program opens."

Temperatures are expected to remain in double-digit negatives in Sudbury through the weekend.