We made a stop over the weekend to visit Shelter House in Thunderbay Ontario Canada, We arrived on Sunday and was lucky to be invited into the Shelter by operations manager Wojciech Czupryski, i was shown around and had lunch with many of the homeless local folk in the city, the soup kitchen that day was manned by the volunteer police trainee’s and they had made a good job of preparing the days food which is donated from the local community.
Shelter House Thunder Bay
Shelter House began its operation in 1980 under the name Thunder Bay Emergency Shelter, when several concerned individuals recognized a need to provide overnight shelter against the cold winter nights. It was originally built to service a ‘temporary’ homeless problem. In 1984, Thunder Bay Emergency Shelter became incorporated and was relocated to the corner of Victoria and Simpson Streets. This building was constructed by volunteers on a limited budget, using donated materials. Upon completion, 28 male beds and seven female beds were available. Two youth focused dorms for 5 males and 5 females.
Our Mission
Shelter House is a temporary and transitional service that exists to provide short term relief to those people in need of shelter, food, clothing, and to support access to the resources and services these people require in order to improve their own capacity to meet their basic needs.
Shelter House is guided by the following principles and values:
1. There is a collective responsiblity to help people in need.
2. All people have self worth and are deserving of respect and dignity
3. All people have the right to adequate shelter, food and clothing
4. All people has the right to make choices about their lives.
5. Both the individual and the community benefit from our work.
6. Poverty, injustice and oppression are social problems not a result of individual failings.
7. Through our work we can affect change to eliminate poverty, injustice and oppression.
8. We do not work in isolation to affect this social change.
The Vision of Shelter House is to create a caring community whereby people are able to meet their basic needs.
We work to ensure that:
Peoples basic needs are met
People who are homeless or a risk of homelessness are supported to move forward in ways that they choose.
The community, governments and policy makers are more aware of the root cause of poverty and homelessness and the resulting impact on people and our society.
Shelter House …
acts as a lifeline for hundreds of men, women, and youth. People come to the Shelter to have their basic needs met. These men, women and youth are often struggling through an emotional or financial crisis. Shelter House is often their last hope for help and assistance.
To contact Shelter house their web site is www.shelterhouse.on.ca
I would like to thank Shelter House for inviting me and allowing the press to raise local awareness into youth homeless issues. Thank you Cal and Lucus
Executive Director:
Cal Rankin
E-mail: shed@tbaytel.net
Marketing & Development
Lucas Jewitt
E-mail: marketing@shelterhouse.on.ca