By Chad Klassen

CMHA, North Shore BIA fear spike in homelessness if transitional housing closes early

Mar 8, 2019 | 1:56 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Branch has served as transitional housing for people on Royal Avenue since November, but come next month it is scheduled to close as Spero House, the modular building on Tranquille Road, opens. 

“It breaks my heart to think about letting people go back to the streets at the end of any program,” said executive director of CMHA Kamloops Christa Mullaly. “But I think we know better than to dump people out on the streets in the spring time.”

Mullaly says 27 of the 36 residents at The Branch will move over to Spero House. But it leaves nine people and others currently living on the streets desperate for shelter. 

“There are, I think at last count earlier this week, 240 people that are currently homeless that have had a vulnerability assessment done that are waiting for housing,” noted Mullaly. 

Looped In

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: December 12, 2024

16h ago

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: North Shore BIA working hard to develop a 'happening place'

22h ago

1000 Ways to Heal

1000 Ways to Heal: Moons

Dec 10, 2024

With delays in the modular project on West Victoria Street, which is just starting and will be done in the fall, there may be nowhere to go for the remaining residents. 

The fear is, if The Branch shuts down in April, the Tranquille Corridor will experience a large spike in homeless camps. 

“Our housing is not online yet. We’re going to have a major influx of transient populations on the street, and it’s going to cause some bigger issues,” said President of the North Shore Business Improvement Association Jeremy Heighton. “We even saw it this morning where we were dealing with bylaw and RCMP in trying to resolve some street-level issues.”

The BIA has said it would write a letter to BC Housing in support of keeping The Branch running. 

“While we’ve seen some challenge in that corridor, as we’ve always seen, we’ve actually seen more resolution to issues than we’ve seen in a long time,” noted Heighton. 

BC Housing has promised that people living at 185 Royal Ave. won’t just be kicked out on the street when the modular units are done. But they haven’t made a committment to keeping The Branch open beyond the closing date next month.

“The issue of keeping The Branch open is a live discussion right now,” said BC Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay. “We’re in discussion with the operator [CMHA Kamloops] and the city. We know there will be a gap to when the modular project [on West Victoria] can be housed, so we’re looking at contingency plans we need to put in place in order to deal with that time gap.”

CMHA would like to see The Branch remain open until the units on West Victoria Street are finished.