A major upheaval in the challenge to put people who don’t have homes in Kamloops up for the winter.
The Canadian Mental Health Association has confirmed it will not be associating itself with any winter shelter programs that the city of Kamloops may have in-place.
Kamloops Executive Director Alfred Achoba confirmed the move to Radio NL Wednesday afternoon.
Achoba says part of the reason for the move is the lack of community support in the city, saying they’re seeing the same thing over and over again.
“We as an agency want to make sure our purpose is able to reflect and push for social and systemic change and running more shelters at this time, where it presents fewer opportunities without addressing basic and structural issues wasn’t the right thing to do,” he said.
“That’s one the reason why we turned down the shelter.”
He says a lack of housing in Kamloops also contributed to the decision from CMHA.
“A lack of housing in our community needs to be addressed so that people don’t stay in shelters for too long and we see supports dwindled with Interior Health and other partners,” Achoba said.
In addition to more “transparency and accountability,” Achoba says CMHA wants to ensure that the services it provides help integrate people back into the community.
“We also want to be able to use our programs to facilitate support and resources for people out there in a way that maintains mental health, in a way that influences the social detriments of health and working collaboratively, and we haven’t seen that in this case,” he said.
Achoba says all those reasons coupled with staffing shortages led to the withdrawal of support for additional shelters.
“We are in an industry that is very dependent on the performance of other entities, and at this point, we don’t feel like those entities are able to support another shelter, and it’s not a bonding that we can take up as a social agency,” said Achoba.
“Our hands already tied up and we did not feel with all of these issues compounded that it was appropriate to run another shelter.”
City of Kamloops responding to CMHA decision:
The City of Kamloops’ Manager of Social Housing and Community Development, Carmin Mazzotta, says he can understand the concerns of the CMHA.
“We have several crises that are facing immense headwinds and I think what we are hearing from this operator is that their organization won’t support that winter shelter operation or take on any additional shelters until we systemically and structurally as a community with our provincial and federal partners, start attacking and addressing, and not just adding new units, but actually ending these crises,” he said.
BC Housing usually funds the Canadian Mental Health Association enabling it to operate winter shelters in Kamloops. In August, the city announced two temporary winter shelters at Stuart Wood School and the Kamloops Yacht Club, which were to be operational from Nov. 1 until March 31, 2023.
Mazzotta tells NL News both those facilities are ready to use though now there is no operator.
“We’re here to do all we can to support but, the city has provided those sites and BC Housing needs to identify an operator,” he said. “We have the two sites ready to go.”
He also says the City is “urgently” engaging other community partners to get winter shelters up and running this year.
“We do have an Memorandum Of Understanding with BC Housing but we are here to try and facilitate solutions and bring partners together and bring resources to bear for our most vulnerable,” said Mazzotta.
“Even things like extreme weather shelters potentially, there is an agency [Out of the Cold Kamloops] in town looking at a potential safe community space for extreme weather nights this winter.”
Through the Federal Reaching Home Fund, Mazzotta says [Out of the Cold] may continue with plans for a three-day per week program, just like they did last year.
“What if on the fourth day it is 15 below? Those are the pieces we’re trying to figure out,” he said. “We know there are some safety concerns that have to be addressed. If you have a three-day a week operation and you have folks hanging out around in terms of neighbourhood impact the other four days?”
“We know that Stuart Wood last year was a 24/7 operation with 20 to 25 shelter pods, and really we did not hear about any significant neighbourhood impact, no major incidents,” Mazzotta added.
“That was a very successful winter shelter operation last year. And so we want to try and replicate that and do it safely.”
Kamloops Mayor-Elect reacts to CMHA decision
Meanwhile, the Mayor-Elect for the City of Kamloops is asking the CHMA what its “mandate” is for shelters in Kamloops.
“What is your mandate? What’s CMHA Kamloops mandate?” questioned Mayor Elect Reid Hamer-Jackson, speaking on NL Newsday.
“I thought the shelters were for the citizens of Kamloops in emergency situation, and you know, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I don’t know but maybe we got to take [the shelters] over ourselves if they’re not interested. I don’t know.”
Hamer-Jackson says he has spent the last three years on the streets in Kamloops, waking up as early as 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. trying to get people into shelters.
“They claimed to be full all the time. And how do I put this, I mean, shelter, come on. What is your mandate? Is the same as BC Housing shelter mandate? Because if you read the BC Housing shelter thing, you know, when I try to get people to a shelter in the Kingston property, they tell me it’s a special shelter,” added Hamer-Jackson.
“I got four guys under the under the Halston bridge, I go [to the shelter] and say to these guys, ‘Hey, can these guys get in?’ and they say ‘oh no, this is a spouses shelter.'”
Hamer-Jackson says it is why he is asking for a review of all the shelters in Kamloops.
“I asked for it for staff in the building and all the staff are going to work scared and for the surrounding community, so I guess if somebody is upset that I’m asking for accountability, they can be upset, but we need to get control of it and they are out of control,” he said.
As for what his plans are to address the situation, Hamer-Jackson says “it’s been a mess for years” noting he’s got 95 police files with the RCMP for a myriad of issues around his vehicle dealership, Tru Market, located downtown at 260 Victoria Street West.
“If everything is going so good, then let’s do the reviews, and if it’s good, it’s going to be good for everything, because then BC Housing and whoever will get more wraparound services,” he said.
As for the Out Of The Cold Program and its three day a week shelter, Hamer-Jackson pointed to BC Housing.
“I’ve heard BC Housing has lots of money, so if they had the money for for CMHA, they should have the money for Out Of The Cold because this is for people out in the cold,” he said.
“The problem is you get evicted or discharged or banned from one shelter from CMHA, well, that means you’re banned from the Emerald House, you’re banned from the Greyhound [Merit Place] shelter. You’re banned from everything.”
As for his solution, Hamer-Jackson suggests there needs to be more providers operating the shelters in Kamloops.
BC Housing issues statement
In a statement issued to RadioNL at 8:14 p.m. Wednesday, BC Housing says it works with it’s partners, to provide people in Kamloops with a warm and safe place to stay, especially as the cold weather approaches.
“BC Housing has funding in place to open two additional temporary winter shelters in Kamloops and has been working with the City to identify potential locations. We will update the community once these locations and shelter operators are identified.”
“In the meantime, the Merit Place, Moira House, Emerald Centre, Mustard Seed and Harbour House shelters will continue to operate, providing a combined 176 spaces to people in need,” said BC Housing in the statement.
“We are also working with the Province and partners on comprehensive solutions to address root causes of homelessness and its many challenges. BC Housing recognizes that shelters are not a long-term solution to homelessness, which is why we have opened 160 supportive homes in Kamloops since 2017, with another 79 underway.”
