RAMPING UP THE ACTION
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 6, 2016
Abbotsford 2016 BC Summer Games community awareness event set for Jan. 23 A9
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Homeless shelter full 10 days after opening Gladys camp remains; occupants decline to move to Riverside Laura RODGERS Abbotsford News
The new homeless shelter in Abbotsford is now full. The temporary winter facility’s 40 funded beds were filled by Dec. 31, according to Lookout Emergency Aid Society, the group running the shelter. Most clients are still staying there, and the shelter continues to run at capacity. It took only 10 days for the building to go from
an empty construction-trailer building on Dec. 21 to a full facility. Residents were brought into the low-barrier shelter gradually, to ensure those living there would have time to settle in and get along. The facility is running on $450,000 in operating funds from BC Housing. Made of six construction trailers on a city-owned lot on Riverside Road, the facility cost about $750,000 in city funds to construct. It will stay open until the end of April and is expected to reopen again
next winter. The shelter wasn’t big enough to take in every homeless person in Abbotsford, with a number of outdoor camps still remaining around the city – some by choice. A tent city still squats on swaths of city-owned land on Gladys Avenue, although a few people have left. Most Gladys tent city residents weren’t interested in moving to the shelter, according to Nate McCready of the local Salvation Army, who
U-Haul loaded with belongings stolen in Surrey, found in Abby
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A18 BC Summer Games officials casting wider net for local performers
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Dad and daughter lose possessions A stolen U-Haul truck containing the belongings of a father and daughter from Saskatchewan was recovered in Abbotsford on Friday afternoon, but few items were left behind by the thieves. The truck had been stolen from South Surrey overnight on Dec. 29 after Michael Suiker and his daughter Meghan stopped to visit family en route to Victoria, where they were moving from Saskatoon. Suiker said he parked the 34-foot U-Haul truck and 18-foot trailer “about half a block away in front of a strip mall” near 34 Avenue and 152 Street at about 12:15 a.m. after completing a long leg of the journey from Calgary. The vehicles were gone the next
CALL FOR DANCERS
HOUSE VALUES INCREASE A6 Single-family homes in west Abbotsford see increase in assessed values
COUPLE STILL MISSING A7 Police issue plea for information two years after pair’s disappearance
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85¢ Photo courtesy CTV News
Meghan Suiker and her father Michael find it hard to rein in their emotions after the U-Haul truck they had rented, and which was stolen in South Surrey, is recovered in Abbotsford – minus most of their possessions.
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