Homeless people escape cold at Southeast Event Centre, emergency shelter needed: advocates say

Steinbach’s Southeast Event Centre has seen rising numbers of homeless people coming to stay warm, renewing advocate calls for a dedicated emergency warming shelter in the city.

SEC’s general manager Melanie Hiebert said homeless people are coming almost “every day” to this facility as the temperature drops. She’s not surprised it’s happening.

“If you live in the community, you’re aware that homelessness exists and especially as the weather gets colder, people are going to be looking for areas where they can go and warm up. This is a public facility where people gather, play and grow,” Hiebert told The Carillon.

People typically arrive during the mornings and evenings when Steinbach Community Outreach, a local homeless charity, isn’t open, she said. The event centre is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.

Hiebert said there haven’t been any drug overdoses or safety incidents since people started coming into the facility.

“Most of the interactions are respectful and without confrontation, as some people are just looking for a place to “sit down and just rest their feet,” she said.

“Individuals stay here for a short period of time and then leave the facility. It’s been very easy to manage this through open communication,” Hiebert said.

To address homeless people entering the space, the SEC developed an unhoused persons policy two weeks ago. She said she consulted with groups, such as Dakota Community Centre and Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg, when crafting the policy.

The policy includes measures to report vandalism or suspicious behavior, and to direct unsheltered people away from the children’s play area, she said.

Hiebert said the centre also met with Steinbach Community Outreach on Nov. 21. She said the charity offered to come pick up people from the facility and give advice on how to handle any issues at the site. Hiebert couldn’t say if Naloxone is kept onsite.

“The intent is not for this facility to be a warming shelter. That’s not the purpose of this facility. I think that there’s organizations within our community that I’m sure are having these discussions and exploring how to deal with this, and what type of help can be offered,” she said.

Hiebert said the safety of staff and the people attending or participating in activities are the main priority for the centre.

While she couldn’t comment in her general manager role, Hiebert said she personally believes a warming shelter is needed in Steinbach.

“Unfortunately, the amount of homelessness that we’re seeing in our community seems to be only increasing. They are members of our community, and I think that, as human beings, we need to care for each other, and that would be something that we could implement that would help to ensure a certain level of safety and just humanity,” she said.

Madeleine Thiessen, Steinbach Community Outreach’s executive director, said there needs to be a place for people to go after they leave the non-profit. Before people started arriving at the the Southeast Event Centre, Thiessen said people would warm up in vestibules and Tim Hortons. In other cases, some would only walk, she said.

“The only way to stay warm is to walk. If you stop in -30 C, you’re going to freeze to death. So they walk,” she said.

She said the charity isn’t pursuing an overnight shelter project because it has few staff and doesn’t have the resources to do nighttime programming, adding the charity focuses on helping people during the day.

SCO partnered with Eden Housing on a $22-million project to build two affordable housing complexes near the Clearspring Centre on Thresher road, a project that’s still in the concept stage and was first presented to Steinbach city council in April.

Thiessen refused to say whether or not Steinbach city council is doing enough to help homeless people.

“I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus, and I do not want to say that the city is doing something wrong because they’re not. They’re doing what they can,” she said.

The INN (Initiative for Neighbourly Nights), which formed in July 2023, was slated to open Steinbach’s first low-barrier homeless shelter in November 2024. The initial plan was to create an emergency shelter that could house 30 to 40 people during the winter months.

The INN shifted its plan to a roughly $1-millon transitional housing project with 12 bedrooms on Main Street.

However in April, Steinbach council passed the first and second reading of a zoning bylaw that would require emergency shelters to apply for a conditional use permit to operate.

The Carillon previously reported The INN’s board chair Leona Doerksen spoke against the zoning bylaw and said “this borders on discrimination.” Doerksen also said at the time the conditional use requirement could block necessary social services.

Doerksen didn’t respond to The Carillon’s questions by deadline.

Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk said the city will support the Southeast Event Centre’s plan in addressing unhoused people. He couldn’t say what that support would look like.

Homelessness isn’t a municipal jurisdiction, but instead a provincial area, he said, noting private organizations often deal with the issue.

“Much of that stuff, even though we support and we help, is best left up to people that really know what they’re doing,” he said.

The conditional use bylaw, while still before the municipal board, was to allow the neighbourhood to comment on what goes in, Funk said.

He said the reason no emergency warming shelters or similar projects have happened yet is because groups “move the goalposts” and change from an emergency shelter to transitional housing to offering health care. He said once it’s settled on what groups choose to be, then council will see where it will fit the bylaw.

Funk didn’t answer multiple questions on if Steinbach needs a dedicated facility to keep homeless people warm, and instead said he’s not an “unhoused personnel specialist.”

Gay Boese, chair of Steinbach advocacy group South East Equity Coalition, said people going to the Southeast Event Centre is a signal that more options for warm, safe spaces are needed.

“Winter’s hardly started, so I’m sure that this is going to be even more so because people need a place to stay.”

She’s concerned, as the weather gets colder, where people will go when they have to leave the event centre.

Boese said Steinbach needs a poverty reduction strategy of its own to address homelessness with both short-term and long-term solutions. She noted affordable housing, warming shelters and public transit access are necessary in helping people out of poverty.

“We’re a city, albeit a small city, but we’re still a city, and we’re growing, and the number of homeless people is going to increase unless we can really work together to make a difference,” Boese said.

She said the responsibility of helping those out of homelessness and preventing it in Steinbach shouldn’t fall on the “goodwill of individuals,” but it needs to be a unified push to bring down poverty.

The need for a homeless shelter or emergency warming shelter isn’t new and it’s still needed, Boese said.

Steinbach’s city council isn’t doing enough to address homelessness, she stressed.

“Why can’t we get it done? Because it’s not that there hasn’t been the will in the public, and there have been people that have been willing to work towards doing just that,” she said.

In November 2022, Steinbach man Ryan Maynard, 29, went missing and was later found dead six months later in a Gordon Street backyard.

A family member, who spoke anonymously to The Carillon, said Maynard struggled with homelessness and addiction. If an emergency warming shelter was available, she said Maynard may still be alive.

“That probably could’ve saved him,” she said. “I think if he knew he had a place to go, then he wouldn’t have given up, and he would’ve kept fighting.”

She said Steinbach needs better resources for helping those in addiction and homelessness, including mental health supports, an emergency warming shelter and a detox center.

“There’s a serious problem in Steinbach and surrounding areas, and everybody is pushing it under the rug like it’s not an issue,” she said.