While the Moncton Lions Community Centre will become the city’s emergency homeless shelter this winter, it won’t be fully ready until January.

Shortly before Christmas, the city’s community safety department intends to put up two large heated tents in the parking lot of the Lions Centre until the emergency shelter opens in January.

Each tent would be able to accommodate about 60 cots.

Seniors and other groups who had been renting space at the Lions Centre have essentially been displaced for the winter.

Moncton recreation director Jocelyn Cohoon told city council on Monday that efforts are being made to help those groups.

“Staff and administration is working very hard to make sure that we find appropriate space for those seniors but also for those community groups who were renting space in that location as well,” noted Cohoon.

“We have been in contact with most of them. We have made referrals for some to go to different locations. Each community group and each of the seniors groups have different requirements, so we’re working through those as quickly as possible.”

Councillor Paulette Theriault, who is a senior, urged city staff not to forget about seniors and their needs and she hoped more inter-generational activities could be planned in the future.