People camped out for several months in Maple Ridge now have shelter facility
Posted October 1, 2015 6:50 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
MAPLE RIDGE (NEWS 1130) It’s a big day for those living at a homeless camp on a Maple Ridge street for the past five months. A shelter has finally opened to house them.
Home owners and businesses on Cliff Avenue have been living with a homeless camp outside their doors since May. But now the city, along with RainCity Housing, has opened a facility on the Lougheed Highway at 222nd Street. It will be open through the winter months and close on March 31st, 2016.
“This is an important milestone. When the camp formed in May the people there told us that they had no alternative to camping outdoors. The City deployed an outreach team in the community who have been working tirelessly to connect people with shelter and other services. Even before the doors opened in the temporary shelter, over 30 people had been connected with shelter options. Now, finally, we have a place for the remaining people on Cliff Avenue to go, “says Mayor Nicole Read.
She sympathizes with people who have homes and businesses on Cliff Avenue. “We need to be moving people off of Cliff Avenue. It’s a residential street and those residents on that street have been through an incredibly trying time.”
City staff are working with the homeless to help them come in and will be there through the weekend. Read says they aren’t setting a deadline now for when everyone needs to leave or saying if RCMP will be involved.
