When the pandemic reached the West Kootenays, it brought many unprecedented issues with it: how to balance safety, isolation, business and community. But for many, the issues they experience have affected them long before the pandemic, and have only been exacerbated by it.

That is part of what Selkirk College nursing students set out to study last summer. The results of “Rural Homelessness and COVID-19” came out earlier this month.

Fourth-year nursing student Jordan Sherstobitoff, shares what she learned by interviewing homeless people in Nelson, Castlegar and Trail — and what she hopes the results can be used for.