BARRIE -- The cold nights are hard to hide from, especially if you have nowhere to live.
Ben Lawrence and his wife Jordan Noble live in a small broken tent in a bushy area in the city of Barrie. For the fourth straight morning, they woke up to snow. Their location is a new one for the young couple. Before this, they were behind The Curling Club, The David busby center and The Salvation Army.
But the COVID crisis has the couple trying to stay away from people as best they can. "We basically have to quarantine ourselves down here and stay away from everybody," says Ben. "It's very concerning because we don't have the help that everybody else has. We don't have somewhere warm to go if we do get sick," he adds.
The situation is similar for many people right across the region. The Alliston "Out of the Cold Program" is trying to rally around clients as possible.
Jenifer Pergentile is the Executive Director of the Out of the Cold Program. "We have been serving about five individuals in a lockdown situation, so we have had them in the shelter for 24/7 since April first," she says.
There is some good news for those people in the shelter tonight. Despite being slated to close at the end of the month, it appears staff are making efforts to stay open. A final decision should be made on that in thecoming days.
As for Ben and Jordan, they celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary in June. Both are prepared to do what they have to to stay safe. "You just have to survive," says Ben. "People have it in them, like everybody has it in them to survive. You just have to make do with what you got".
