Councillors voted unanimously to amend a rezoning bylaw required for a temporary shelter to operate at three churches during the cold/wet weather months, by adding a repeal date of May 1, 2008.

They then voted unanimously to finalize the bylaw as amended, thinking the move would offer a warm, dry place for homeless people to sleep next month.

But that might not happen now.

Rob Thiessen, executive director of the Hope For Freedom Society, which pitched the temporary solution after negotiating a $147,000 grant from Service Canada, said council’s move puts funding at risk because the agreement is for two years, not one.

“The worst-case scenario is they kill it after this month,” he said.

If the grant money is retained, Thiessen said other churches in Port Coquitlam and Port Moody would have to step up — as well as garner their respective city council’s re-zoning approval — to fill the void in the 2008/’09 winter season.

PoCo council voted unanimously last month to permanently rezone Northside Foursquare church, where homeless people are sleeping this month. PoMo council voted 5-1 Tuesday to refer rezoning of St. Andrew’s United church to a public hearing (see story at right).

For Coquitlam churches to continue to participate — Coquitlam Alliance, Eagle Ridge Bible Fellowship and Calvary Baptist have agreed to host the shelters — the sites would require rezoning again: a lengthy, expensive and exhausting process for stakeholders, which includes a public hearing. (Last month, 300 people turned up to an eight-hour hearing on the issue in Coquitlam.)

“From a political perspective it doesn’t look good,” Thiessen said of council’s move.

Despite council’s pledge to push hard for a permanent solution, a “sad and frustrated” Thiessen said it’s not going to happen in time.

“There’s no way on God’s green Earth we would be able to pull together a permanent shelter proposal by next winter,” he said.

Sandy Burpee, chair of the Tri-City Housing Coalition and co-chair of the Tri-Cities Homelessness Task Force, agreed.

The model BC Housing is willing to fund is a combination of permanent shelter and transitional housing, he said, and includes trained staff, case management services, partnerships with community resources and more. It’s not something that can be pulled together last minute, he said, using the YWCA transitional housing project in Burquitlam as an example.

But Colin Tisshaw, an Eagle Ridge resident and member of the self-proclaimed Concerned Citizens for Permanent Shelter Committee — which held “Vote No” signs as council considered first readings of the rezoning application — said the amendment is “positive.”

“The whole process... is so scrambled and messed up that this seems to be a... way to sort of manage the project,” he said, calling the temporary shelter model “totally inadequate.”

Tisshaw said he wants a permanent shelter plan by next fall but, when asked about the tight timeline, said, “We’re not building a super sophisticated nuclear reactor.”

The last-minute bylaw amendment option came just two hours before Wednesday night’s 7:30 p.m. special council meeting, and is allowed under a new provision in the Community Charter never used before by a B.C. municipality, according to staff.

Monday, councillors Mae Reid and Lou Sekora voted against third reading of the bylaw because of a lack of sunset date. With the repeal date included, however, they voted in favour two days later.

“This is the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do and I thank-you staff for giving me a way that I can support this,” Reid said.

Sekora made a notice of motion to ask four council representatives from each Tri-City municipality to lobby senior governments to build a permanent shelter by next fall.

Mayor Maxine Wilson said northeast mayors will send letter to the province calling for the re-establishment of Riverview, which many have suggested would be an ideal permanent shelter site.

lgerrits@tricitynews.com