(Today’s Northumberland file photo)
By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Chance Brown has given members of Northumberland County council the 48-hour challenge.
At this week’s meeting of county council’s Social Services Committee, Brown outlined the details.
Wait until it’s 48 hours in advance of the opening of the warming room for the winter, he said, then stay awake from that point on. Carry on your lives without sleep and then, when the warming room does open, be on hand to greet those coming in.
“That will show you compassion for what we have to live through,” he said.
At last week’s emergency county council meeting, where they voted to proceed with a warming room, Brown had reported on his own canvass of how many people are living rough in the area, and he came up with 73.
The issue came up because, in order to obtain a license for the warming room, the Town of Cobourg will require the county to adhere to Durham Region guidelines for winter warming centres, Chance Brown pointed out that they have “a lack of clarity on sleeping.”
It does not say warming-room users can sleep, it doesn’t say they can’t – although in the warming rooms Cobourg venues have hosted, sleeping has been discouraged, in spite of the comfortable lounge chairs they were equipped with.
The result, he said, “is staying awake and being exhausted, while the rest of the county sleeps.
“A warming place where you can’t sleep is not compassion. Recovery begins with rest. Without it, there’s no healing.”
Acting Chief Administrative Officer Glenn Dees noted that the county will not only have to adhere to conditions on the warming room set by the town but also those that apply through their fire safety plan.
The fire code differentiates between spaces allowed for sleeping and those that do not, Associate Director of Housing and Homelessness Rebecca Carman said.
According to her own review, Durham doctrine “does not specifically speak to sleeping, but it does allow for the provision of cots – which we have not been allowed to provide. That would have a different level of rest than a chair might,” she noted.
“At this point, we are not proposing lounge chairs. We are proposing chairs that are similar to here,” she said, referring to the seating in council chambers.
“It’s hard. It’s challenging. Sleeping and resting is a very important part of how we function as human beings and what we are able to do in our life and our day. However, it’s becoming a privilege.”
