Winnipeg homeless shelters bracing for winter

With the warmth of the summer months now firmly behind us, local organizations helping the homeless are now turning their attention to winter and Winnipeg’s Main Street Project is launching their sixth annual Socktober campaign. 

“This is one of our biggest donation drives of the year and does help us collect quite a bit of socks that we can use to support our community.  This year we are aiming to collect 30 thousand socks,” explained Cindy Titus, communications specialist with Main Street Project.

Aside from Socktober, the Main Street Project is continuing to accept donations of warm clothes to ensure they are prepared to help the most vulnerable from the harsh winter temperatures.

“During the winter months, we are looking for toques, scarves, mittens, warm winter jackets, snow pants, base layers that can go under those items and of course warm socks, snow boots that kind of thing.”

It’s a similar situation over at Siloam Mission, which has seen the number of people needing their help grow over the past few years.

“At this time, we start to stockpile, outerwear, warm jackets boots,” said Luke Thiessen, communications specialist at Siloam Mission.

“As we have come out of the pandemic, a lot of our numbers have been rising, especially for meals and clothes and things like that.  Our shelter has been full, we have a capacity of 143 and that has been full every night.  So the need is great, we do what we can, and we hope our shelves are stocked for those in need”

Meanwhile, at Salvation Army’s Centre of Hope, the executive director says they are also at full capacity which he admits is odd for this time of the year. Adding donations are especially crucial as more refugees require their help.

“What we have seen the last two years is that specifically as refugee claimants that are coming into the country and are not dressed properly.  So we want to ensure we can help our community that is existing here as well as new community members that are coming in which is challenging right now,” explained Mark Stewart, executive director of Winnipeg Centre of Hope. 

To adjust to a higher level of demand, the Centre of Hope is opening up 60 needs beds in their facility, which should be ready within the next two weeks.