By Tanya Cronin

Crossroads Inn changes mean more people living on the streets

Jul 4, 2018 | 5:01 PM

KAMLOOPS — New rules at a popular ‘transitional housing’ site in Kamloops could mean more homeless people ending up on the streets.  

The Crossroads Inn, run by Ask Wellness, has been a hub for some of the city’s most vulnerable, and recently the number of people with complex and intense health issues, has increased. That has put immense pressure on the 24 hour staff, created issues in the community and has forced Ask Wellness to tighten restrictions on who is allowed into the 15 transitional spaces.

“We have too many folks that are really not well, struggling with addictions, very complex behavioural issues, and you combine that with the fact we’re providing supervised consumption services through the partnership with Interior Health, and distributing harm reduction materials, we just got to a point and said we can’t do all of this out of one facility,” says Ask Wellness Executive Director Bob Hughes. “We’re negatively impacting the neighbourhood and these are some of the corrective steps we have to take, and that includes putting a hold on bringing in those folks that are really challenging.” 

With limited shelter beds in the community, there’s concern about an increase in street-level homelessness. Sites like one on Fifth and St. Paul, along with 52 modular residential units planned for Tranquille Road on the North Shore, will help alleviate the issue. But Bob Hughes says the city needs to step up and address what has become a crisis situation. 

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“If you have really serious issues like this with addictions and mental illness and physical and behavioural problems that you live with, and if you don’t have the Crossroads or a building like that what are you left with, well you end up with people stuck at shelters,” says Hughes, “We’ve tried to do this in a responsible way by communicating with the BIA about our steps that we’re taking and recognizing the impacts that we’re having in that neighbourhood, we’ve worked with the city and BC Housing and Interior Health and we need to mitigate the impacts for this population, but it’s a decision that we needed to make,” says Hughes.