Bitter winter and Omicron wave make 'perfect storm' for Edmonton's homeless population

Shiranda Bull sits in a plastic chair inside a pharmacy waiting room, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, plastic bags inside her soaking-wet sneakers.

A man slumped over in a chair beside Bull is asleep, his hands pulled up inside the sleeves of his jacket. Another man sleeps on the floor, under a chair.

Manager Alyaa Ibrahim says her central Edmonton pharmacy at 10570 96th St. has become a refuge for homeless people who often line up outside nearby shelters. She regularly offers her visitors a warm place to sleep — an increasingly rare commodity during the bitterly cold winter as shelters face staff shortages and capacity limits due to the Omicron variant's surge.

More emergency help is needed for homeless people in distress, Ibrahim said in an interview. 

"Not a human, not an animal should be in the cold in the street," Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim also serves free coffee and tends to small wounds. Last month, she called an ambulance for a disoriented man who walked in with fingers so frostbitten his flesh had turned black and begun to rot.

"His hand was all black. He didn't know he was losing his fingers," Ibrahim said.  "He didn't know his name." 

After days of mild temperatures, a winter storm blew across Alberta Monday, bringing with it freezing rain, blowing snow and icy temperatures around –25 C with the risk of frostbite in minutes. By Wednesday, communities across the province remained under an extreme cold warning while Edmontonians awoke to biting wind that made it feel like –35 C.

The blast of cold came as shelters were already contending with staffing shortages made worse by the Omicron variant, and capacity limits that are part of COVID-19 public health measures.

The province is contending with a wave of COVID-19 infections driven by the new variant. Alberta has 70,223 known active cases, but the true number is believed to be 10 times higher. 

As of Tuesday, there were 1,089 people with COVID-19 in Alberta hospitals. The positivity rate hovers around 39 per cent, much higher than in earlier waves.

Bull, who found shelter Tuesday in Ibrahim's pharmacy, said she puts new plastic bags in her shoes every day in a bid to protect her feet from the bitter cold.

The 29-year-old has been homeless in Edmonton for more than three years, bouncing from couches to shelter beds. When temperatures plunged on Monday, she slept on the floor at the Herb Jamieson Centre, a shelter. 

"With COVID, people don't really want a bunch of homeless people around," Bull said. "That's made it a lot harder for us to be anywhere."