Cowansville, Farnham warming centres up and running for second year
People experiencing homelessness in Cowansville and Farnham will be able to come in from the cold at community warming centres for the second straight year.
The Cowansville centre is open on Monday and Thursday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on the otherwise unused lower floor of the Uniprix pharmacy on Albert St. The Farnham centre, at the community centre on Rue St-andré Sud, is open Tuesday and Wednesday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. On nights where the wind chill falls below -20, both centres will be open overnight from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. “We would love to have places open five days a week with longer hours, but we have budgetary concerns, and we’re doing what we can,” said project co-ordinator Marie-andrée Pomerleau.
Pomerleau is a project co-ordinator at the Maison des Jeunes de Farnham, one of more than 30 organizations that have worked together, through the Brome-missisquoi Homelessness Committee, to get the shelters open.
“There’s a lot of hidden homelessness in Brome-missisquoi – people who have been couchsurfing at friends’ houses or who are in precarious housing situations [or] have lost their housing due to the housing crisis. We need to ensure people’s safety as best we can. We decided to put [the warming centres] in place to support them because there are no other resources like this in the region.”
At the warming centres, which opened in early December, people in need hang out on the couch, stock up on snacks and handy winter supplies like socks, enjoy a hot coffee, speak with support workers onsite and get referrals to other services. People under the influence of alcohol will be allowed in the centres “unless the situation is completely unmanageable,” Pomerleau said.
Pomerleau said the people using the centre are from a cross-section of society. “We see both men and women, relatively few young adults and families – the one thing they have in common is that they are people in distress. They’re not, by definition, dangerous.”
She emphasized that homelessness can happen to anyone. “We say that everyone is two pieces of bad news away from homelessness – for example, if you lose your job and lose your apartment, one thing leads to another, and you can’t get your head out of water.” According to a 2022 census of the provincewide homeless population, substance abuse, loss of housing after a hospital or rehab stay and eviction were the three most common causes of homelessness in the Estrie region.
If you would like to contribute snacks, warm clothing or other supplies to the warming centres, send a message to the Haltes-chaleur Farnham & Cowansville Facebook page.