Thank you very much.
Lookout Housing and Health Society has been working to end homelessness and increase the health of vulnerable people in British Columbia since 1971.
We provide housing and a range of support services to adults with little income and who have few, if any, housing and support options. Because the people we serve have challenges meeting their basic needs and goals, we place minimal barriers between them and our services.
We started in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and we are now one of the largest shelter and housing providers in the province, providing services in 15 communities across Metro Vancouver, Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island, as well as offering provincial services through our Mood Disorders Association of British Columbia arm.
We currently have about 900 staff. They serve more than 2,800 people daily in our shelters, housing, outreach health and support services. We support people who cope with multiple barriers, including mental health problems, substance use, poverty, chronic illness and trauma.
For COVID-19, Lookout has partnered with BC Housing, Vancouver Coastal Health and the City of Vancouver to open the emergency response centre located in the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. It has appropriately spaced cots and bathrooms available for people who need to self-isolate and has social distancing parameters.
In the last couple of weeks in March, we started a phased move-in with a maximum of 79 beds. As of this morning, there are 51 people staying at the Roundhouse Centre.
We're also currently working with two other communities to provide a second and third emergency response centre, partnering with BC Housing, two local municipal governments—New Westminster and Abbotsford—the Fraser Health Authority and a local church. They are scheduled to open in the next two to three weeks. These sites will also be used as shelter expansion and overflow for medical services in emergency rooms. They will allow for social distancing in an effort to try to keep people well and bolster their immune systems before COVID hits the vulnerable population that we serve.
Unfortunately, these centres are necessary due to our housing crisis and the lack of social housing, and they are also temporary. It's due to the pandemic nature that they have been opened.
Lookout serves vulnerable populations, and our goal is to prevent illness. It's always a high priority for us. We follow best practices established by local heath authorities for potential outbreaks of any kind at any time. Our policies include universal precautions and a pandemic plan, and it covers all forms of contagion. We work with our suppliers to have up-to-date cleaning supplies and procedures and we use innovative products to help reduce bacteria at our sites.
Over the last few months, our focus has really been on increasing the immune systems of vulnerable people and creating that trust and connection to local health care when and if people fall ill and become COVID-positive.
For this work, we're following the guidance of the WHO, the CDC and the local health authorities in increasing our cleaning protocols and using PPE effectively but also sparingly, since we're having a very difficult time in accessing a regular supply. Obviously, we are promoting handwashing and educating about its importance, and we are enforcing social distancing and relieving our sites of congestion as much as possible.
We thank Reaching Home and the federal government for the COVID response in dollars. We've been a recipient of a lot of that support financially, and we thank the Province of British Columbia for the emergency funding that has helped us purchase some of the PPE and create some of these new connections for folks.
Right now, our staff team is our number one resource, so finding ways to protect them and keep them safe and to provide relief and celebrate their successes and essential service in our province is really important work that we need to focus in on, I think nationally.
Thank goodness for the community groups and organizations that have been donating homemade masks, cleaning supplies, food and other items, because procurement of these types of things is getting really difficult.
Overall, I think the national housing and poverty strategies, as well as this response, have been very good at a federal level, but through this pandemic and beyond, we need better access to health care that focuses on trauma recovery and concern for the wellness of those who are socially isolating, and more so for the folks that Lookout serves on a day-to-day basis in dealing with previous trauma amidst the pandemic, combined with the opioid crisis, the local housing crisis and really a national housing crisis.
Dental care has also been an area of concern, where people fall into addictions That has a profound impact on their health, and so we need a federal dental program, and easier access and implementation of the CMHC funds for housing. It has been incredibly difficult to build housing even with the national housing strategy. The scope is very limited, and it's tough to access. A lot of further work on drug policy is needed in this country to keep people safe who are mired in addiction.
There was some work on pandemic prescribing, and I applaud the federal government for taking those steps. The issue needs more attention. We need to be focusing to ensure that the most vulnerable people have a level of wellness that allows them the best opportunity to overcome the challenges they face, and we see a myriad of challenges. As long as trauma and physical health are impacting folks, they're not going forward in their journey to wellness.
Thanks for the time today.