By Chad Klassen

VIDEO: Inside look at the new transitional housing units on Mission Flats Road

Oct 30, 2018 | 3:25 PM

KAMLOOPS — Crews are working as fast as they can to get the transitional units on Mission Flats Road finished before the weather in Kamloops turns frosty.

“Right now, I’d say we’re pushing close to the 80 per cent completion,” said Horizon North health and safety coordinator Brandon Stewart. “It’s looking like we’re going to hit our deadline closely.”

Projections have the building about three weeks from opening, a little more than two months from the start of construction. Crews have been working 12 to 14 hour days to ensure the project is done as quick as possible.

“This is one of the most ambitious projects that we’ve been apart of, in terms of timeliness and just the magnitude of trying to pull it off,” said ASK Wellness executive director Bob Hughes. “We’re basically calling it housing in eight weeks.”

The building, to be called Osborne House, named after homeless man Donnie Osborne who passed away, has 55 bedrooms that were already built. The units were used by workers at the Mica Dam north of Revelstoke. 

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It has been a matter of getting the plumbing and heating in place, and putting all the pieces together. 

The tenants have already been chosen by ASK Wellness, but they’ll have to brave the elements until the building is complete. There are also 40 units going in on Royal Avenue on the North Shore that will be finished in mid-November.

While Emerald Centre is adding 13 more beds as of Nov. 1 to help with demand, people on the streets of Kamloops may have to wait a couple of weeks to get shelter. 

“It’s a sad reality of construction,” said Hughes. “You can be as ambitious and determined as you wish to be, but pulling all the parts together, and this is a massive achievement to try to pull it off. We’ll look at emergency motel units for some folks if they have nowhere to be, they’re really vulnerable. It may choke that shelter for another week or so.”