The City of Summerside is allowing restricted use for a parcel of land for at 25 Frank Mellish Dr. for a 10-bed emergency shelter, but the P.E.I. government is not being given a carte blanche.
Council voted 6-2 Monday night to approve the use in the area. Councillors Cory Snow and Bruce MacDougall voted against the resolution, which came in response to an application from the provincial government.
Housing advocates in Summerside have been calling for an emergency shelter in Summerside for years.
“I’m very excited that they did the right thing and they voted to push this through,” says Elysha Whitlock with The Village, a group which aims to help people experiencing homelessness by helping clients find housing and providing hot meals.
“We all know there is going to be follow-up meetings involved, but my fear was the longer the process took the longer we’d be waiting for the shelter doors to eventually open. So, I greatly appreciate the six city council members that pushed that through.”
Both Snow and MacDougall said they wanted more information from the province on how the site would be run and what non-governmental organization might be tasked with running it.
