From Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
Vancouver’s oldest mosque is operating as an overnight shelter for anyone in need of refuge from the streets during the winter cold.
Members of the Al Jamia Masjid congregation opened the mosque on Dec. 18 when temperatures fell below freezing. The plan was to close the space, located at Eighth Avenue near Cambie, after a week, but if the demand remains, that deadline is flexible.
“If the need is there, we will be open,” said Haroon Kahn, president of the Pakistan Canada Association and trustee of the Al Jamia Masjid.
“This year, the emergency was really acute and the interfaith community has been mobilized. We really felt like this was the right thing to do, especially at this time of year,” he said.
On average, the mosque has sheltered 10 to 15 people per night, including many youth. They are kept company overnight by volunteers, mobilized by Haroon’s nephew, 22-year-old Abubakar Kahn.
Volunteers are primarily youth themselves, many of them Abubakar’s friends, whom he said “wanted to help because they had been hearing about the homeless crisis and fentanyl deaths.”
“We just started brainstorming and we said, let’s open the mosque for a week and it just started flowing, more and more [volunteers] started joining,” said Abubakar, who has spent nearly every night since then sleeping at the mosque.
