COVID-19’s Impact on Kingston Youth Shelter: An Interview with Emily Haak
Sophia Ceccucci, Investigative Journalist
December 11, 2020
The spike of COVID-19 cases across Canada signals a “second wave” of the global pandemic. Cities are once again going into lockdown, businesses continue to suffer, and students are still adapting to online and socially-distanced forms of learning. As we continue to think about the state of our world, it is easy to forget about marginalized and precarious populations within our communities. With winter just around the corner and increasing social distancing measures being put in place, we must consider how these government policies and health regulations are affecting the homeless population and the services provided to them. To further investigate this pressing issue, I sat down with Emily Haak, an integral member of the Kingston Youth Shelter, to talk about COVID-19 and homelessness in Kingston.
Can you briefly describe some of the programs you offer at the Kingston Youth Shelter and tell me a bit about your work there?
EH: We offer four different programs. Our first program is the Kingston Youth Shelter which is our emergency shelter currently located at 113 Lower Union. At the shelter, we have 19 beds for youth, and it’s more of an emergency shelter. We can have children come in for a few meals a day, or stay for the night. At the shelter we provide meals, we have transportation for them if they need to get to meetings or Ontario Works [which provides temporary financial assistance to those in need], and we have staff on hand to help youth improve their situation. Whether that be getting youth involved with OW, getting back into school, addressing any legal problems they may have going on- really any services that they need.
Our second program is Kingston Youth Transitions which involves transitional housing for kids ages 16-24. One of the transition homes is for ages 16-19 only, and they can stay there for up to two years. There, we focus on developing life skills with them. We help them cook, we help them clean, and we try to give them the tools to be independent and to live successfully on their own. Our second transition home is on Yonge St. and it’s the same idea, just geared towards older kids. This group is more in the 19-24 range.
Our third program is Kingston Youth families. We have our family mediation worker, Vivian, who works with youth and their families to try and reunite them. It’s not always possible. Sometimes the family conflict is just too much, but sometimes it can be mediated and we can get the youth back home rather than out on the street or in the shelter. Our fourth program is our Prevention Diversion program. Our prevention diversion worker, Mitchell, works with the kids on securing housing. Whether that be transitional housing, supportive housing through other organizations, or getting their own apartments or bedrooms.
I’m filling in right now as the manager of youth services. Our normal manager, Denise, is off on leave right now, so I’m filling in for her in the interim. I just oversee all of the shelter [Kingston Youth Shelter] and transition [Kingston Youth Transitions] operations, and I make sure everything is going smoothly day-to-day. I meet with residents should they need to have a meeting before they arrive at the shelter. I make sure everybody has all the supplies they need. I also do a lot of administrative tasks like scheduling; I help with the bookkeeping and tax receipts sometimes too. I’m the supervisor for all the shelter staff, and then I report to Ruth who is our executive director.
One of your main programs is offering shelter to youth in need, which is obviously a difficult task due to the pandemic. How has COVID-19 impacted your role in the community?
EH: For most programs, COVID has caused shutdowns or significant slowdown; we have done the opposite. We were located at 234 Brock St. where we had 15 emergency beds. The city has moved us temporarily to 113 Lower Union where we have 19 beds, and they’re all located in individual rooms so that the youth can properly physically distance themselves. Our capacity has increased, so we’ve been crazy busy. We’ve been full every night, and we’re taking adult overflow as well from the adult shelter because they had to cut their capacity from 35 beds to 12 beds. Most organizations have been cut back, but we’ve ramped up. We have double staff all the time, which is very, very busy. Between all three sites, we have 30 kids to accommodate every night. The pandemic has increased the demand for our services and increased our capacity. On the other side of that, because of COVID, our funding has been decreased, so it’s been difficult to offer more services to more youth, but on a lower budget.
That was the perfect transition into my next question! What are some of the main challenges that the pandemic has caused for the Kingston Youth Shelter?
EH: The biggest challenge is the funding. Our funding has been cut significantly. A lot of that is because we have a lot of organizations that do charity events to help support us, and of course, with COVID, a lot of those types of events are not possible. We’ve been fortunate that a lot of our partner organizations have continued to do fundraisers for us anyway by adapting them to make them safe, but it has impacted a lot of them. That has been a huge factor for us. Also, just having the youth be physically distant while in the shelter and have them keep their masks on in the shelter. We want our youth to feel at home, but right now that’s just not possible. Staff always have to remind them to stay away from other people and wear their masks. It’s a battle every day to have them follow these protocols. Of course, we can supervise what goes on inside the shelter, but we cannot supervise what goes on outside. There’s always that risk that something could come back, and we could have something happen in the shelter. Thankfully that has not happened yet; everyone has stayed safe and healthy but that is a risk and it’s something that we are concerned about.
What are some things that the Kingston and Queens communities can do to help you guys out during the winter?
EH: We always love to accept donations. Whether that be food items, perishable or non-perishable. We have lots of fridge and freezer space so we can take anything like that. We are always in need of winter clothing like hats, mittens, sweaters, any warm clothing like that is super helpful for the youth. The youth are going out during the days and doing things, and they don’t necessarily have the money to buy those items themselves. We rely a lot on donations for those items. Donations are the biggest for us; they’re the biggest way to help out. We accept food items, clothing items, and monetary donations. Our building at 113 Lower Union is staffed 24/7, so people can drop things off there any time they would like. We do ask that they give us a call first so that whoever is working is expecting them.
My final question might be a loaded one just because of the rapidly changing environment we are living in. What do plans for the future of Kingston Youth Shelter look like?
EH: It’s tough to say right now because we’re at this building [133 Lower Union] temporarily. We were originally supposed to go back to our regular location on Brock St. in August, but of course, that did not happen. There, our capacity would be cut down to 6 due to social distancing, and we currently have 19 youth every night. We don’t want to run into a situation where we are sending 13 kids out onto the street every night and making 13 kids homeless, so we are staying at the city building for now. The city owns this building and is very kind to lend it to us, but we are never sure when we’re going to be moving. That’s one of the biggest things- we just don’t know what tomorrow is going to look like for us. The city can tell us to go back to Brock St. whenever. This is something hard to foresee because when that happens, we will have to cut our numbers quite significantly. It’s really hard to say what our future will look like because it could look so different tomorrow. If everything is continuing as it is, and we are staying at the building we’re at right now, we would just continue doing what we have been doing. We have our 19 kids every night, it’s been very, very busy, and we’re anticipating it to stay very busy. Right now, there are so many unknowns, and the funding is unknown. We’re not sure what kind of donations we are going to receive, or what kind of funding we’re going to get, so that’s always keeping us on our toes as well.
My conversation with Haak reveals that the spread of COVID-19 has many more social implications than most people have anticipated. The Kingston Youth Shelter’s location insecurity decreased funding, and emergency social distancing measures are prime examples of this. Many of us are members of the Kingston community, and it is our responsibility to do our part to stop the spread of COVID-19 for our community to be truly safe again. With a vaccine on the way, our world is looking a bit brighter, but we must continue to follow regional health protocols to ensure that people who don’t get sick over the next few months never get sick from COVID-19.
Head to https://kingstonyouthshelter.com/ to learn more about Kingston Youth Shelter or if you wish to inquire about donating.