As the City of Barrie prepares for extreme cold to move through the area later this week, local shelters are working on expanding space for those in need.
"People are needing to get inside. It's really, really cold outside and people who are unfortunately without housing need somewhere safe to be," said Sara Peddle, Busby Centre executive director.
According to Peddle, the temporary shelter at 20 Rose Street accommodates roughly 50 individuals each night. However, due to the frigid temperatures, hours will be extended for daytime service.
"People are getting frostbite, they're getting trench foot, and they are getting all these health effects coming from the effects of the cold. We want to make sure that's not happening," Peddle said.
With visitors assigned a designated room and access to a warm meal, the shelter is one of a few spaces aiming to protect the city's most vulnerable.
According to the Busby Centre, just over 200 people live without housing within Barrie. As the extreme cold moves in over the following few days, organizations say staying warm will mean life or death.
"People will die. It's very cold out. I don't like going out when it's just zero degrees, so to sleep outside ... that's ridiculous. It's not safe," said Hayley Murdoch-Fyke, John Howard Society of Simcoe Muskoka executive director.
At the John Howard Society, a warming space is also hoping to fill that need, the organization reporting that it is seeing dozens of people using the service daily.
"It's a place where they can sit, breath and eat and figure out what their next step is," Hayley Murdoch-Fyke said.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
The federal budget proposes an across-the-board three per cent spending cut for all departments and agencies, a belt-tightening move after years of massive growth in the federal public service.
The increase in excise duties on all alcoholic products is being temporarily capped at two per cent starting next month instead of a planned six per cent increase.
The federal budget shows the government's proposed dental-care insurance program will cost more than double what the Liberals originally thought, driving it up by another $7.3 billion over five years.
Tucked into the 2023 federal budget unveiled on Tuesday in Ottawa, the Liberals have announced plans to explore implementing a standard charging port across Canada, in an effort to save Canadians some money and reduce waste.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government plans to launch a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office, amid ongoing scrutiny of allegations that Beijing interfered in recent federal elections.
In the wake of another deadly mass shooting in America, that saw children as young as nine years old shot and killed, the gun control debate is going nowhere, writes CTV News political analyst Eric Ham.
Another American community is reeling after a shooter killed three 9-year-olds and three adults at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville. These are the three children and three adults whose lives were taken by the shooter.
Nashville police have released security camera footage of a suspected shooter entering the private Christian elementary school. The shooting claimed the lives of three children, all aged nine, and three adults.
Almost three years after a man disguised as a Mountie started murdering people in Portapique, N.S., on the night of April 18, 2020, the senior RCMP officers and staff involved in the tragic case have all either retired or moved into new jobs.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
New Brunswickers suffering from a mystery neurological disorder are calling for an investigation into potential environmental causes of the health problems they've been living with for more than two years.
A Quebec provincial police officer was fatally stabbed Monday night while performing an arrest in Louiseville, west of Trois-Rivieres, Que. The Surete du Quebec (SQ) has confirmed the identity of the officer, Sgt. Maureen Breau, who had been on the force for over 20 years. She was assigned to the post of the MRC de Maskinonge. Another officer was injured during the incident, but their life is not in danger.
Montreal police say they have identified two more victims found in the rubble of a fire in Old Montreal 12 days ago. Charlie Lacroix and Walid Belkahla, both 18, are the sixth and seventh victims of the fire.
A 22-year-old McGill student who suffers from a terminal disease could soon lose access to the medication she needs because she's graduating from university.
The federal budget proposes an across-the-board three per cent spending cut for all departments and agencies, a belt-tightening move after years of massive growth in the federal public service.
One person is dead after an early morning fire in Kanata, while another person is being treated for smoke inhalation after being rescued from the burning home by a bystander who spotted the fire while driving to the gym.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
The man who killed a 16-year-old boy remembered as an avid adventurer has been wanted on an arrest warrant issued in a Newfoundland courtroom for nearly two years.
The mother of a five-year-old girl said her daughter was allegedly bullied so badly she was left with a partially amputated finger from an incident in the washroom.
A Toronto man is wanted for a February incident in which he allegedly sexually assaulted a woman he followed off public transit before taking her phone and sexually assaulted her again, police say.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
A London toddler is fortunate to have avoided serious injury after a giant cinderblock came through her bedroom window in the middle of the night. Around 4 a.m. on March 26, Riiver was sleeping with her head right under the front window of her home on Emerson Avenue.
London fire crews are currently tackling a ‘large grass fire and working barn fire’ in the southeast section of the city Tuesday afternoon and are asking the public to avoid the area.
OPP are investigating after discovering a child who was vital signs absent in West Elgin on Monday. According to police, no foul play is suspected in the child’s death.
The driver of a pickup truck, a 47-year-old woman, has died after a crash with a tanker on MR55 in the Greater Sudbury community of Lively on Tuesday morning, police say.
The mother of a five-year-old girl said her daughter was allegedly bullied so badly she was left with a partially amputated finger from an incident in the washroom.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
A Saskatoon couple says they felt ignored by police after their five-year-old foster son was attacked by a dog outside the Meadowgreen Confectionary on March 22.
The Pizza Hut employee who was shot at his workplace earlier this month is on the long road to recovery, his sister has confirmed Tuesday to CTV News Edmonton.
In the 2023 federal budget, the government is unveiling continued deficit spending targeted at Canadians' pocketbooks, public health care and the clean economy.
A pair of sprawling resort properties in B.C. – complete with a hotel, ski runs and lifts, lakefront cabins, a campground, and a pub – are on sale for less than the price of some Vancouver tear-downs.
Authorities are asking witnesses to come forward after security at Simon Fraser University discovered the head of the school's Mahatma Gandhi bust had been removed.
