The Mayor of Kamloops is also calling on the BC Government to build a new complex care housing project in the City, similar to what was announced in the Lower Mainland last week.
The government defines complex-care housing as a “groundbreaking approach” to address the needs of people with overlapping mental-health challenges, substance-use issues, trauma, and brain injuries, who are often left to experience homelessness.
Ken Christian says there are about 30 people on the streets of Kamloops who would immediately benefit with this type of housing.
“It is primarily to meet the needs of individuals which have chronic untreated mental illness complicated by addition and now further complicated by acquired brain injury,” he said.
“In and of themselves, they are creating a great deal of chaos both for business and for customers and most importantly, their health needs are not being met by the current housing continuum.”
In a statement, B.C.’s Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing, David Eby, said the current housing system is not working for people who have serious mental-health and addiction issues.
“[They] cycle in and out of shelters, jail and emergency rooms,” Eby said. “Pairing intensive health-care supports with housing to support people who are currently living in distress on our streets will improve not just the quality of life of everyone housed through this program, it will improve quality of life of the entire community.”
The B.C. government says it will monitor the roughly 100 new spaces that will be shared between Surrey, Abbotsford, and Vancouver to see how and where it can be expanded.
Christian’s comments come as Kamloops Councillor Mike O’Reilly questioned why no communities outside the Lower Mainland were announced as part of this new pilot project.
“There is a lot more access to services down in the Lower Mainland and a more denser area, in a denser population, and the rest of the province is not built that way,” O’Reilly told NL News. “You would think that would be the intent of a pilot project is to see how these facilities would work in all major cities in the province, not just the Lower Mainland.”
“If you look at what was announced, it was two in Vancouver and two in provincial election swing ridings in Surrey and Abbotsford,” O’Reilly added.
“That is what the press release could have said. It is unfortunate for the rest of the province and it is unfortunate for the advocate of people who have mental health issues throughout the province.”
Speaking at last week’s Thompson-Nicola Regional District meeting, Christian asked Kamloops North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar to continue lobbying the province for such a facility.
“Any help that you might be able to provide in terms of lobbying on behalf of Kamloops would be appreciated,” he said. “While they actually are walking the streets of Kamloops, these people actually come from the entire region.”
