A volunteer group in Pictou County, N.S., has plans to buy a former church and open a permanent shelter in 2018. The former Life Shelter in the town of New Glasgow served 30 people per season for five years before it closed in October 2016. “A lot of people may look at this building and say for a few people why do you need a big building? We need a big building because we have big plans,” says volunteer, Brian Bowden. Part of the volunteers’ plans is to name the shelter after civil rights pioneer, Viola Desmond. Bowden says he hopes the shelter will be able to give voice to those who are unwilling to stand up against the inequality they see, like Desmond did. “We saw the injustice that was done to Viola and there's a lot of injustice being done to the homeless that are in Pictou County and this is why we want to bridge that gap for these people that are unwilling or afraid to speak up for themselves,” Bowden says. While the work to secure the building continues, members of the First Baptist Church in New Glasgow are stepping in to help. “We were requested if we would be willing to open our doors, to help the homeless, to provide a place for them as a temporary shelter until our permanent shelter was established,” says Donna Cooper, who volunteers at the First Baptist Homeless Shelter. The church has been opening its doors one night a week to give food and shelter to the homeless. Volunteers say the warm summer weather seems to have helped keep numbers down, but one night a week isn’t enough going into the winter season. While the shelter doesn’t have enough space to host more than nine clients a night, Cooper says if they had more volunteers they would be able to open more. “One night a week is just not enough for us going into this cold weather,” Cooper says. “We feel very strongly that we would like to be able to meet this need this winter.” She says the shelter needs more volunteers to work in the kitchen, do laundry and other chores. “The reward for us is just being able to provide that place for someone to lay their head at night and feel that we have met a need in our community where there is currently a gap.” With files from CTV Atlantic’s Dan MacIntosh.
