LLCS Delivered most needed Winter Care Packages to Salvation Army Crosswalk Shelter
The next 2 weeks’ forecast calls for more snowfall and cold rain. Unfortunately, Vancouver’s homeless are seeing firsthand how full shelters can get in extreme weather conditions, with the city-wide closure of all but 4 warming centers in mid-January 2017. The Lotus Light Charity Society (Vancouver) volunteers visited the Salvation Army Crosswalk Shelter on Feb. 6, to provide more than a hundred winter care packages (new socks, toques, gloves, scarves, mitts, hygiene products and emergency food bars and water/juice, etc) as snow fell and temperatures dipped below freezing on Monday night. With shelter hours open 9:00pm to 7:00am, a typical day living on the streets is spent trying to stay warm and dry, lining up for food and lining up again before shelter space is gone.
In the midst of Vancouver’s housing crisis that has widely impacted over 50% of Vancouverites who face spiraling rent increases and less than 1% vacancy, our community’s next “at-risk” for homelessness group are low-income individuals/families, persons with disabilities and fixed-income seniors.
The Lotus Light Winter Charity Drive, now in its 21st year, has raised community awareness and benefited Vancouver’s homeless each year since 1995, and has distributed more than 330,000 winter garments and non-perishable food items since its inception. In 2016, close to 30,000 items of sleeping bags, winter garments, personal hygiene products and food items were distributed to the homeless and low income families with assistance from our community partners. Additional sleeping bags and supplies are being distributed throughout January 2017 in the Vancouver downtown core and eastside. We welcome community donations to help those most vulnerable fellow citizen in our community.
