Long-time homelessness advocate Tangie Genshorek officially took the reins as Executive Director at A Way Home Kamloops on Sept. 1 - Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

COMBATTING YOUTH HOMELESSNESS

A Way Home Kamloops’ new executive director really excited about Katherine’s Place project

Sep 22, 2021 | 4:08 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s been a tumultuous ten months for A Way Home Kamloops.

However, with the recent announcement of a partnership to build a 39-unit housing facility and the appointment of a new executive director, the not-for-profit organization is hoping to turn a corner.

Tangie Genshorek, Executive Director at A Way Home Kamloops, says there’s a great deal of excitement around the project, which was announced on Monday (Sept. 20). The building is a partnership between BC Housing and A Way Home and will be built at the corner of Tranquille and Elm Street. Once built, the building will be called Katherine’s Place.

“The plans were really worked out before Katherine passed,” Genshorek explains. “She did a lot of the work with the BC Housing partners and the designers at Bluegreen Architecture. We’re just putting little tweaks on it now, to work with the city and start the development permit process.”

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The building will feature 24/7 wraparound supports for youth aged 19 to 26 years old who have experienced different types of housing insecurity.

“We’ll have services from trauma recovery and addictions recovery, all the way through to training, employment, education,” Genshorek says. “The common space will be a great space for people coming in from the community to offer a variety of training. We can meet youth where they’re at and work towards their goals that they’ve decided they want to work on and provide them whatever they need.”

Genshorek took over the job at A Way Home on Sept. 1. She’s a long-time advocate for folks experiencing homelessness who served as the coordinator for the Kamloops Homelessness Action plan. She says her priorities are to carry on the work that A Way Home Founder Katherine McParland started.

“She had a really clear idea of incorporating youth voice into what we do. People with lived experience know better than anyone else what we should be doing to serve them. So that’s the key piece of work that we’ll be continuing – keeping that front and centre, and just building on all the things that Katherine started.”