The City of Vancouver will open tomorrow (December 20) a shelter at 1435 Granville Street that will allow people with shopping carts and pets.

But the move comes too late for a homeless woman known in the streets only as Tracey.

The 47-year-old woman burned to death early morning today (December 19) on Davie Street at Hornby Street after lighting candles to keep warm under a tarp draped over her shopping cart.

Judy Graves, coordinator of the city’s tenant assistance program, told the Straight that she has met Tracey before.

According to Graves, the woman had lived for some time in the same place where she died around 4:30 a.m across the street from a convenience store.

“We’ve been scrambling to get shelter space into a city-owned building,” Graves said, referring to 1435 Granville Street.

This space could have accepted Tracey and others like her. According to Graves, existing shelters do not allow people with carts and pets to move in.

“It should be up and running tomorrow night and she would have been able to come in with her shopping cart,” Graves said. “I don’t know whether that would have made the difference but it might have.”

Graves said that the identity of Tracey is already known but it is not being released, pending notification of her family.

Graves doesn’t know where Tracey is from, except that she’d also lived for a time in Abbotsford.