Response to cold weather project amazes shelter director

The head of Shelter House says she hopes a busy first month for the Cold Weather Pilot Project will mean the program can continue.

Patti Hajdu said the response to the program — which dispatches a mobile team to transport vulnerable people needing shelter — has been positive since it began a few weeks ago. Hajdu said feedback from emergency services, city councillors, and local businesses has also been good.

Any extension to the program will require additional funding, however.

“The majority of the cost is for the workers that are out there,” she said.

“And then there's a smaller cost for the actual transportation costs: fuel, and maintenance, and all the things that go into running our very old Pontiac van. But it's doing the trick.”

The current pilot is slated to run for three more months.

Better alternative for many

Hajdu said the program has helped people more than 200 times in the program`s first two-and-a-half-weeks.

“When you get those kinds of stats in the first 18 days, it kind of blew us away,” she said.

Helping people in need could mean bringing an intoxicated person from Shelter House to detox, or picking up someone off the street and bringing that person to a shelter.

"It really is for emergency and urgent situations and for people that are experiencing intoxication,” Hajdu said.

The response time to get to a person is usually about 15 to 20 minutes, she noted.

The business community is reportedly one of the biggest users of the system. More than 30 per cent of calls made to the program are from business owners who notice someone is intoxicated or in distress.

"People are really happy to go along with this because think of the alternative,” Hajdu said.

“The alternative is that they're transported, usually by the police, and often not to a place of their choice. So this is really choice-based.  Obviously, if someone doesn't want to go to detox, we don't force them. And, if they're so sick that they really have to go, that's when we call in for our partners' assistance."

Paramedics freed up

Superior North EMS Chief Norm Gale said he sees benefits from the program as well, as it frees up paramedics for other calls.

“A large part of emergency medical services demand [is] for psycho-social issues, [and] marginalization issues,” he said.

“If we can see those types of calls reduced or, indeed, eliminated, system performance would improve.”

Hajdu said she hopes early positive feedback like this will lead to the four-month pilot being extended.

“I think that we will … garner some support and … I'm confident that we'll figure out a way to go forward,” she said.