A new warming centre located on Fraser Street in downtown North Bay opened on November 1.
Dennis Chippa, executive director of the North Bay Gathering Place soup kitchen which is operating the warming centre, is surprised by the early numbers.
"The numbers again are startling," said Chippa.
"Normally when we started last year the first couple of weeks we were seeing maybe 20 to 25 meals going over. Because we do the meals as well as doing the programming and stuff like that and we were seeing 20 to 25 meals and now we are seeing like today we just got a call for 50. So the numbers are quite startling."
Chippa says on Monday they had nearly 80 people come through the doors at some point in time. He cannot pinpoint one reason for the high demand, but he thinks it could be the location.
"We are seeing people we don't normally see so maybe they are centred in the downtown core so they are coming to our place on Fraser a little bit more," said Chippa.
"We don't really know yet but there are a lot of individuals that we don't normally see at our place that we are seeing there."
Chippa says the high demand creates some challenges for staff.
"We are doing the best that we can," admitted Chippa.
"We know with that kind of number, we were hoping to ease into things but with that kind of number we are looking at trying to increase our security, we are getting folks to go outside and do garbage pickup.
"We are working really hard to try and be good neighbours understanding at the same time we are dealing with numbers now that we were not anticipating so we are working with that."
Chippa says it is a work in progress.
"We are trying to get these folks taken care of and the needs they are coming in with," he said.
"It is not just food. A lot of them want to sleep, we have to get them cards, they want to do puzzles and books and stuff like that. It is a scramble but we knew it would be like this but the important thing for us was to be open by Nov. 1."
Back in August, the District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board (DNSSAB), along with the City and Crisis Centre North Bay worked to identify an available location that could be opened as a warming centre. That's when they found the available vacant building on Fraser Street.
The low-barrier shelter on Chippewa Street remains open overnight for people experiencing homelessness.
