One Roof Community Ministries is keeping the doors open to the Warming Room at Murray Street Baptist Street and the One Roof Community Centre at St. John’s Anglican Church on Brock Street, especially through this stretch of extreme cold weather.
The Warming Room is a low-barrier overnight shelter for men that is open from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. When other shelters in Peterborough fill up, the overflow ends up at the Warming Room.
The Community Centre is a daytime drop-in centre that serves two meals a day. The Warming Room has 20-25 men staying every night, while the Community Centre has been serving 7,000 meals month.
“That’s up from the summertime when the numbers were quite a bit lower. In the wintertime, we see a lot more people coming in to eat, and coming in to be a part of our programs,” says Christian Harvey of One Roof Ministries.
While Harvey appreciates the support they get from the community for the shelter program, he says it’s only a Band-Aid solution. What really needs to happen is the creation of more permanent housing so people have an alternative to shelter life, he says.
Harvey adds they are always looking for supplies of warm coats, gloves and boots for those who use the shelters.