In line for a shelter bed on a cold night

With many tents pitched in city parks and local shelters at or near capacity most nights this winter, Peterborough Currents decided to visit the Trinity Community Centre on a recent evening to hear from people seeking shelter from the cold.

Shortly after 7:00 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, a few dozen people are lined up on the sidewalk outside the Trinity Community Centre’s entrance on Simcoe Street.

This former church offers 45 cots to people experiencing homelessness every night on a first come, first served basis.

One man steps out of the queue momentarily and, realizing his mistake, cries out in distress. With space inside limited, he’s clearly worried that losing his spot could mean being turned away from the shelter into the cold tonight.

A few couples waiting with everyone else for the doors to open at 8 p.m. huddle together against the -11 C windchill. One woman in a wheelchair has her bare toes exposed below a cast that extends up her left leg.

At about 7:30 p.m., a silver minivan pulls up, and a woman with flyaway brown hair hops out.

“Hello beautiful people,” Mindy Roderick shouts. She announces that she, along with several other volunteers who appear from a nearby parking lot, have brought hot soup, grilled cheese and snacks.

Several minutes later, a Trinity staff member comes outside and hands out tokens for people to use a cot, freeing them to leave the line and grab take-out cups full of steaming soup.

But not everyone receives a token to escape the cold. With a light snow now falling, one man says he’s third on the waitlist for a spot in the shelter, which is run by One City Peterborough. He says he is also waiting to find out if there’s a bed for him at the nearby Brock Mission. He says there should be more shelter beds in the city.

Some 50-70 people are sleeping outside this winter, say councillors Bierk and Riel

Trinity staff regularly have to turn people away due to lack of beds, One City Peterborough executive director Christian Harvey says later in a phone interview. An average of 46 people have used the shelter every night so far this winter, Harvey says. Although there are only 45 cots, some people leave part-way through the night, allowing their cots to be used more than once per night. Nonetheless, 63 people had to be turned away in December for lack of space, he says.

Most of the Brock Mission’s 40 beds are full every night, too, according to a recent city staff report. The city-funded shelter for men had an occupancy rate of 90 percent between January and October 2024, the report states. Cameron House, a city-funded shelter for women with 12 beds, had an occupancy rate of 95 percent during the same period.

City councillors Alex Bierk and Keith Riel are calling on Mayor Jeff Leal to use strong mayor powers to temporarily open another shelter this winter and declare a state of emergency around homelessness. A joint statement the councillors issued on Wednesday, January 22, says emergency shelters are full and some 50-70 people are living outside.

Responding with his own statement, Leal says the city has already significantly increased spending to tackle homelessness, which he calls a “humanitarian crisis.” Leal says the 2025 budget includes more than $2.6 million in city spending to prevent homelessness, more than double last year’s amount. But Peterborough needs more help from the federal and provincial governments to deal with the situation, the mayor’s statement says.

“If I sleep, I get cold. I don’t want to die.”

A man who only gives his name as Mike says he’s been spending most nights “in a snow bank” recently.

“My tent got torn down, ripped up, so I stay awake all night, all day,” Mike says. “If I sleep, I get cold. I don’t want to die.”

Mike says he was temporarily banned from the Trinity shelter about two weeks ago, though he doesn’t say why. He’s barely slept since, he says, except for one night when he stayed on a friend’s floor.

Mike came this evening to ask staff to fill out paperwork to lift his ban, but says he was told to come back during daytime hours. “That’s an issue on a cold night like this,” he says.

Harvey says he doesn’t know the specifics of Mike’s case, but individuals can receive temporary bans if “there’s an issue that affects the safety of others in the space.” When that happens, staff write an agreement stating when the person can return and “what would need to change” in order for that to happen, Harvey says. For example, if someone is banned for violence or theft, they would have to make a commitment to not repeat those behaviours in the future, Harvey says. Staff “will sit down and have conversations around… is there something needed from our end that would help with that happening?” he says. People “normally” have to talk to staff about having their ban lifted during daytime hours, Harvey says.

Trinity the only shelter that welcomes couples, people with pets

While not everyone at the doors tonight will get a cot to sleep in, others who would likely be turned away from other shelters will.

One woman holds a small dog with light tan fur close to her body. At other shelters, she would have had to choose between a warm bed or keeping her dog, Harvey says. But Trinity recognizes that people’s dogs “matter a lot to them,” so they’re allowed in. It’s part of the philosophy of being a “low barrier” shelter, he says. Couples are allowed to stay together, too, unlike at Brock Mission and Cameron House.

Inside, there’s also a “discreet area” where people can inject opioids without supervision when Peterborough’s supervised drug consumption and treatment site is closed at night, as Currents reported last year. Without a designated space for drug use, people would still use drugs but they would hide it, which would be “more dangerous,” Harvey said at the time.

The shelter started as an overnight winter drop-in centre funded by community agencies in January 2023. The city kicked in funding the following winter, and city council recently approved spending to keep the shelter running year-round in 2025. The Trinity Community Centre also offers a day-time drop-in program funded by the city.

One woman who doesn’t give her name says this is her second winter sleeping at the Trinity Centre.

“It’s not easy,” she says. But “if we [don’t] get in each other’s way, there is peace.”

In the morning she will return to the public library, where she spends most days looking for a place to live. “Little by little, you try and try every day,” she says. Despite Peterborough’s high rents, she remains hopeful she will find a place to call her own. After all, she’s a “fighter,” she says.

Volunteers serve meals to people experiencing homelessness four nights a week

Roderick, the volunteer, says she was once homeless herself and knows first hand what it’s like to stand in line for a shelter bed in the cold.

She explains that she and the other volunteers have been giving out meals to unhoused people for a few years, under the name the Peterborough Community Kitchen – Wiisindaa, which means “let’s eat” in Anishnaabemowin. The group, made up of “beautiful Indigenous ladies,” cooks and serves 140-150 meals per night, four times a week at locations around the downtown, she says.

“We do a lot of Indigenous food as well to bring culture,” she says. Tonight there’s bannock bread on the menu, alongside the soup and grilled cheese.

Roderick says several local groups provide free lunch to people experiencing homelessness, but in the evening meals are harder to come by. “It’s a huge gap in the system. Our friends don’t get any night-time food,” she says.

As the volunteers prepare to leave, a young woman arrives outside the shelter. The soup is packed away, but Roderick opens the van to pour her a cup. The woman says she knows she probably won’t get inside tonight since she got here late, but she’s grateful she caught Roderick and the other volunteers in time.

They “come down and make sure that everybody’s taken care of and it’s great,” she says. “We need more people like them.”