Image Credit: Adam Donnelly / CFJC Today

By Dylana Kneeshaw

COUNCIL MEETING

Kamloops council reviews recent shelter-use, potential BC Housing MOU and complex care needs

Jan 25, 2022 | 4:46 PM

KAMLOOPS — A recent report from the City of Kamloops notes shelter use over the last several weeks has been high.

When temperatures dropped in December’s cold snap, Kamloops’ Social, Housing, and Community Development Manager Carmin Mazzotta says the shelter system was expanded from its capacity of 153 beds.

“At the peak during that recent extreme weather event, there were 201 people accessing shelter on a given night. And over the course of the extreme weather event, it averaged out about 196 people during the peak week,” Mazzotta says.

Heading into February and March, the shelter at Memorial Arena will be dissolved into other sites. Mazzotta says there will be 50 beds available at Merit Place – located in the former Greyhound bus station – along with 40 beds out of Moira House on Kingston Avenue.

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“There is still a need for year-round shelter spaces in the community,” Mazzotta adds. “This year, the city is going to be working with BC Housing on a shelter land use analysis and that’s going to be a map where we try to identify location criteria for where shelters could be located; what areas are suitable for future shelter sites?”

The shelter use report updating council is largely focused on shelter development, but also identifies a need for long-term housing options that will serve a variety of people.

“In the 2016 census, and the latest data is not out, 47 per cent of renters in Kamloops at that time were living in unaffordable housing,” Mazzotta explains. “So there is a massive need across the community for affordable rental housing.”

David Eby, B.C.’s Attorney General and the Minister Responsible for Housing, addressed council Tuesday (Jan. 25) about BC Housing’s work in Kamloops. Eby was asked about another facet of the housing and healthcare model: complex care for people who have overlapping mental-health or substance use challenges, trauma, and acquired brain injuries.

“There is a population of people that will not be successful in the supportive housing, we just know that as a matter of math and history. And that’s why I’m very supportive of Kamloops getting the complex care support that you need and deserve,” Eby says.

City staff are also working with BC Housing to establish a memorandum of understanding. This would clearly outline expectations from both the city and BC Housing when developing and operating shelters, housing, and complex care sites.

When asked when Kamloops would get its own complex care site, Minister Eby wasn’t able to provide timelines on exactly when that would happen but says Kamloops has been identified by the province as a priority city for it.

“I don’t know because it’s not directly in my ministry what Interior Health is thinking and what projects they are proposing. So I would encourage you to also reach out to your health authority to the extent that they’re able to respond right now, and to understand from them where their various proposals are at around complex care,” Eby says. “But rest assured that Kamloops has been identified as a priority at the provincial level.”