Canada

Every year hundreds of seniors pass through the doors of Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission (UGM) in the Downtown Eastside.

But since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of seniors accessing the shelter’s services has been steadily increasing.

Pre-pandemic, roughly one-quarter of people staying at the shelter were over the age of 55, according to UGM. Post-pandemic, that’s grown to one-third.

In November, for the first time in the organization's history, home-care aid workers started making weekly visits to the shelter to help seniors with basic tasks like taking a shower.