Lack of funding has closed a unique and very popular shower, laundry and washroom facility used by people living on the streets of Surrey, leaving many with no place to stay clean and healthy.
Surrey Urban Mission Society (SUMS) opened the Cove Healthy Living hygiene station less than two years ago, in November 2022, but the tap has run dry on the nearly $700,000 needed to operate the facility annually.
Seven days a week in a modular building at 106 Avenue (Veterans Way) and 135A Street, people experiencing homelessness could shower there, use a toilet and get their laundry washed for free, but no more.
"It was an amazing facility, especially because it was low-barrier and used by people with nowhere else to go, which is a real problem for people on the street," Jack O’Halloran, CEO of SUMS, said Thursday (Sept. 5).
"Unfortunately, on Monday night (Sept. 2) at nine o'clock, we closed the doors for what looks to be good," he added. "We just totally ran out of funding, and couldn't find it anywhere that we turned."
A one-time grant from the Union of B.C. Municipalities, administered by the City of Surrey, led to the hygiene facility opening in the fall of 2022.
"We estimated that we could go to about May 15, 2024, with that money," O’Halloran said, "and we we ran it for the whole year of 2023, a very, very busy successful year, over 40,000 visits in 13 months. BC Housing gave us a small grant to keep it open until August, another three months, but they're more focused on housing."
SUMS, a Christian mission in Surrey since 1995, "got nowhere" with appeals to federal, provincial and civic governments in recent months, he said. "We went to the news media in hopes of finding a private donor, but unfortunately it takes about $60,000 to $70,000 a month to run the facility, so it's about a $700,000 bill for the year."
O’Halloran said "a lot" of labour was needed to operate the hygiene facility daily, from early morning to late at night.
"We had anywhere from four to five staff on each time, with community case workers to connect people with services and do their ID, stuff like that," he explained. "And we probably burned through two or three laundry machines because they were basically going, you know, 15 hours a day."
A Now-Leader video showed the facility weeks after it opened in November 2022, on surreynowleader.com.
Anmol Swaich, a community organizer with Surrey Union of Drug Users, said many of the group's members used the facility and have nowhere else to stay clean.
"There's almost nowhere for them to use washrooms, and showers are nowhere," Swaich told the Now-Leader. "We can't ignore how this relates to health and well-being generally. I mean, not having clean clothing or a clean body, it's all related to not being able to protect yourself from infectious diseases. For wound care, showers are critical for that. It's a real disappointment, and even before this closure, Surrey was in desperate need of hygiene services and washrooms."
O’Halloran says he and SUMS "have definitely not given up" on trying to reopen the Healthy Living station.
"But we don't own the land or the structure that was on it," he noted. "I've searched things out like portable showers, and did some research on an organization in San Francisco where they use some old city buses to create washrooms and showers, and they basically drive into neighbourhoods, hook up to the fire hoses and provide shower facilities like that.
"I've looked into everything but right now, we don't know if the city, or whoever, is going to sell that land or develop it," O’Halloran added. "We just know that we have no funding to operate the facility any longer."
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke said the city has been "very supportive" of the hygiene facility. "We did what we could to keep it open a little bit longer, into August. But in terms of funding this, it was a UBCM grant, and it's really provincial funding needed to support this kind of facility. I'm hopeful that the province will revisit this (and) steps up with funding."
