Harvest House Atlantic Makes Adjustments For COVID-19

There’s continued support for the homeless at shelters across the city during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Greater Moncton Homelessness Steering Committee provided an update to Moncton City Council this week.

Harvest House Atlantic Deputy Executive Director Marc Belliveau says they’ve been able to keep all of their employees, “During COVID, we have not lost any of our 30 person staff. We have very dedicated staff. We are very glad to be able to say that through federal grant money, we’ve been able to access the wage top up for those staff who have chosen to continue working through COVID.”

Federal funding has helped to keep their clients safe during the pandemic as well.

Belliveau says, “With federal funding, we’ve actually been able to create a self-isolation unit. That was five beds that were created in one of the wings of harvest House for people who find themselves homeless in the City of Moncton, who came in from out of the province or are symptomatic of COVID. They were able to access those beds to do their 14 days self-quarantine.”

Belliveau says the Centre currently has a total of 98 beds available, divided between shelter, addiction recovery services and step up transitional housing. Their hope is to expand to 107 beds by the fall, with nine additional beds to be added to their addictions recovery program.

This past fall, they did a soft launch of their skills and employment program. Belliveau says, “This is not just hard skills of carpentry of electrical work or plumbing. It helps to teach people how to converse with co-workers, how to show up to work on time and not be on their cell phone all the time. It really helps people to know what it looks like to help them retain employment.”

Their hope is to expand on that program, and help find employment for those taking part.