Kelowna’s priority at the Union of BC Municipalities annual convention in Whistler this week is to get the province’s support and money for its ambitious, multi-year, multi-million dollar plan to tackle homelessness.
Mayor Colin Basran said efforts to raise provincial funding in support of the return home strategy include a series of face-to-face meetings with provincial ministers, including ministers for health, social development and poverty alleviation, mental health and addiction, and local affairs ministers Living.
“My message to everyone is that we need the province to get people into apartments so they can get the support they need,” Basran said.
The Journey Home Strategy is a five year plan to end homelessness in Kelowna. It is currently being implemented by a city-appointed task force that the council approved earlier this year. With a Housing First Model, the plan aims to accommodate those on the street and then give them the support and treatment for issues such as mental health problems and addiction when they are needed.
Although the city is pushing strategy and the local RCMP is stepping up patrols downtown to address growing concerns about overt drug use and other issues, several candidates in the current election campaign complained that they believed the city was not doing enough business the problem.
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Basran said he wants to see from ministers how Kelowna can get access to funding to help build the 300 new long-term supportive housing units under the Journey Home plan and to provide 500 new program rooms for treatment.
He said an initial approach to housing has been shown to work and is an effective way of getting people in need of it into support programs for dealing with mental health and addiction that are common on the street.
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The Union of BC Municipalities Convention gathers local leaders from across BC to share ideas, meet and talk to one another, as well as provincial leaders and encourage Victoria as a group to support certain calls.
Basran said the issues of homelessness, mental health and addiction, crime, people sleeping on the street, and discarded needles were not specific to his city.
“This is a crisis, a serious problem across North America,” he said after attending a meeting of British Columbia mayors at Congress earlier this week.
“Kelowna is not facing these problems in isolation.”
He said it wasn’t new either.
“It’s been built for decades,” he said.
In response to current candidates pointing fingers at his advice for not doing enough to solve problems, he said that no one or any council can put an end to the problems on the street. It will require a joint effort involving all levels of government as well as the community, Basran said.
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