Two shelters out of the five that were opened last winter were closed by the province due to complaints by local residents. The two shelters were located under the Granville Street Bridge, the other three remaining emergency shelters are in the Downtown Eastside. Homeless activists from the Carnegie Community Action Project organized a news conference to show that lots of people support keeping the shelters open and to reveal how hateful some of the opposition to the shelter has become. Glyn Townsend of the BC Persons with AIDS Society said the shelter was needed because hotels in the Granville area that used to house low income people have all gone upscale. Many people who used to live in them have HIV and want to be close to St. Paul’s hospital.