Fraserside Community Services Society turns away thousands of people every year from its emergency family shelter.
Arbe Myhre, the society’s executive director, said the New West facility is one of only two emergency family shelters in the Lower Mainland. She said the New West shelter has 12 beds and a North Vancouver facility offers 12 to 18 beds.
“We run at capacity pretty much all the time,” she said. “We turn away thousands of people a year.”
Myhre said the lack of family shelters in Metro Vancouver means many families are left without a place to turn during times of crisis.
Emergency family shelters provide temporary, short-stay, communal living for families with children at a time when the housing crisis – and the lack of affordable housing – are forcing more and more families to seek emergency housing.
Fraserside said it does not have enough beds to meet the growing demand for its family shelter beds. In 2023, its facility in New West supported 52 people who were facing a housing crisis, an increase from 37 in 2022.
“We are always full,” Myhre said.
According to Fraserside, the majority of people served at its shelter are newcomers to Canada – folks who often need support with completing paperwork, connecting to services, accessing schools for their kids, and finding housing.
But the shelter supports clients from all walks of life and all types of families. That includes multi-generational families (such as a mom and her children and their grandma), a parent who became widowed and is now supporting the kids on their own, and people who have lost their previous housing (including a family displaced by an apartment fire) or are unable to afford rents in today’s housing market.
“We see all of the different demographics,” Myhre said. “The majority of people that we turn away are fathers with kids. And it's not because they're not suitable; it’s because we don't have space.”
Where do they go?
“That's a good question,” Myhre said. “Where do they go?”
When they are unable to access emergency shelters, Myhre said families end up “making choices out of desperation” – such as cohabitating with another family or living in their cars.
While it is located in New West, Fraserside’s shelter accepts clients from all communities.
“It's first-come first- served,” Myhre said. “It's a matter of if you call today and we have space for you, and it's suitable.”
Supporting families
When folks contact Fraserside about the family shelter, they are screened to make sure it’s the right place for them to be.
The shelter is high barrier, so clients are not able to drink alcohol or use drugs while accessing the service. Clients must abide by a curfew designed to ensure everyone is on site by a certain time and is focused on “business things” during the day.
“Monday to Friday, people are required to be looking for housing, be accessing services,” Myhre explained. “So, it's not just sitting here being able to watch TV for 30 days. Because that would be doing you a disservice, right? Thirty days can go really quickly, and we know there's a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Families are encouraged to follow routines that develop skills they can utilize when they move into other housing. That includes making breakfast and lunch, taking the kids to school, limiting electronics, and setting a regular bedtime.
“We've had families who say this was an absolute game changer for them, it, set them on the right path, it created the stability that they needed for their family,” Myhre said. “And again, it's that life skills part – teaching people about schedules and routine, how to access services, how to navigate systems. People are really thankful for their stay here.”
A bright and homey house in the West End, the family shelter is a former duplex that has been converted into a single home. It includes a playroom, two TV rooms, bedrooms, a reading nook, bathrooms, two kitchens and a snack room.
“We do have dinner every day at 6 p.m. Staff prepare dinner,” Myhre said. “We do eat dinner together like a family time, but for every breakfast and lunch, they create their own meal. We provide the ingredients, all the food that they need to create breakfast and lunch, but they prepare it for their families. So, they have more control over what they want to serve for their family.”
Because the shelter is based on communal living (something that is covered during the telephone screening process), clients are also responsible for doing chores.
Fraserside staff work with the clients to help them find housing, employment, schools for the kids, and other resources that may be needed, such as social assistance and food programs.
“There’s individual case planning that happens,” Myhre said. “Everybody's needs are very specific.”
The ultimate goal: housing.
Housing needed
Fraserside recently invited media to tour the emergency family shelter to highlight the need for more beds.
“As the housing crisis in Metro Vancouver continues to worsen, families are struggling to find safe and affordable housing options,” said the media advisory. “One often overlooked solution are these family shelters, which provide a temporary, short-stay, communal living home for families with children. Unfortunately, these facilities are in severely short supply, leaving many families without a place to turn.”
After five years with Fraserside and 25 years in the social services sector, Myhre became the society’s executive director in February – a role she took on, in part, because of the opportunity it provided to highlight the need for all types of housing, including emergency family shelters, second- and third-stage housing, subsidized housing.
Myhre is concerned that there “hasn't been a lot of evolution” in terms of emergency family shelters since the 1970s, despite the changing demographics.
As examples, she noted that dads can’t go into non-family shelters with kids (even though more dads have custody of their children) and women cannot go into shelters with sons over the age of 12 – at a time when many people are one paycheque away from homelessness and housing costs make rents out of the reach of many families.
Myhre is hoping to spark a bigger conversation among all levels of government about the need for family shelters and second-stage housing where can go after their 30-day stay at the emergency shelter.
“Once people leave here, they often need support. There isn't a second stage for them to go to,” she said. “That would still provide additional services and supports to give people the skills that they need to be successful.”
