With the closure of the Warming Room until they find a new home, The City of Peterborough has announced it is working with community partner agencies—including Brock Mission emergency shelter, Cameron House emergency shelter and Youth Emergency Shelter—to make sure there are beds available for people in need.
When there isn’t space in a shelter, Peterborough Social Services provides alternatives for short-term shelter while they connect people with more permanent housing programs and services. That’s the priority—making sure people have safe and reliable housing, so they don’t have to be in tents or living on the streets. Everyone who uses the Warming Room is being offered assistance.
The City wants to continue to provide the Warming Room service. The Warming Room Community Ministries’ lease with Murray Street Baptist Church expired at the end of 2018 and was extended until the end of June 2019. It hasn’t been able to find a new space. The City’s continuing to work with Warming Room Community Ministries as it searches for a location.
“I have always been supportive of the Warming Room and assisting the community’s most vulnerable citizens,” Mayor Diane Therrien says. “We are working together to find better solutions, create permanent housing, and help the Warming Room move to a new location.”
Anyone who needs emergency shelter is asked to visit Peterborough Social Services at 178 Charlotte St. or contact Social Services by phone at 705.748.8830 between 8:15 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, or at 705.927.0096 overnight, on weekends and on holidays.
If you have a space that could work for Warming Room, email charvey@warmingroom.ca. (One Roof, also operated by Warming Room Community Ministries, a drop-in centre and meal program, continues to operate at St. John’s Anglican Church on Brock Street.)