Some Williams Lake city councillors softened their opposition to a homeless shelter project in the city’s downtown after receiving a report by staff at their June 21 regular council meeting.
Strong opposition to the project was voiced at the June 7 council meeting suggesting the city might withdraw support for the project due to complaints from some nearby residents of the shelter, including reports of discarded needles, people hanging around and trespassing.
However, the report, which had been requested at the May 24 council meeting, appeared to address some concerns.
The report also helped to counter some misinformation which had been shared regarding staffing and who the shelter was housing.
The submission of the 41-page report by Community Safety Coordinator Silvia Dubray detailed how since December 2021, 94 guests have been housed for an extended stay at the Hamilton Hotel, with an age range of 15 to 80 years old.
Sixteen of those individuals have been moved into housing, two were reunited with family, three moved on to more permanent housing at the Jubilee Place program, 10 were moved into private market rentals and one client was connected to treatment outside of the area. Two guests died while in the shelter due to toxic drug poisoning.
One previous shelter client, a woman in her 50s, wrote a letter included in the report in support of the shelter, which provided her housing after health issues and the local rental market meant she was left unemployed and homeless.
“Without this shelter I would have been sleeping in my car with my dog in -20 degrees,” stated the letter. “In the (June 7) council meeting you alluded to only bad people staying at the shelter, but I want to let you know that homelessness has many faces.”
Another 72-year-old resident with mobility issues told the Tribune he couldn’t find a place to rent and he felt safe in the shelter, which he said has “sure done a lot of people good.”
Interior Health’s harm reduction coordinator also wrote a letter of support for the shelter.
Three letters of complaint from neighbouring residents were also included in the report. Issues cited in the letters included people hanging around the area, drug use, discarded needles, a lack of supervision and police attending the facility.
The shelter is funded by BC Housing and operated by the CMHA. The city of Williams Lake also contributed to the facility with some Covid relief funding.
Canadian Mental Health Association said some of the calls for police service to the facility have been a result of staff needing assistance in ensuring mental health patients take their medications and not all are related to serious incidents and the facility is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Council was assured the facility is temporary, and work is being done to address neighbours’ concerns after the last-minute extension to the project. Mayor and council were also invited to stop by the shelter and meet with the housing manager to see it and ask questions.
BC Housing is also putting together a pamphlet for area residents that will include numbers to call and who to get in touch with when they see something.
Tereena Donahue, the interim executive director for CMHA in Williams Lake, said the organization only received three complaints directly and had worked to address them, so were unaware of the frustrations some neighbours had taken to council.
Read more: Battle between Penticton and B.C. over homeless shelter officially before the court
Donahue said for the most part, their organization had been getting positive feedback as they addressed a nearby business owner’s complaint after a needle was found by installing a sharps disposal and initiating regular walks around the premises. But discarded needles in the downtown have been an issue for some time, and are not just a problem due to the shelter going in, according to safety coordinator Dubray.
She spoke at the council meeting on June 21 when the report was presented and said she and her husband, both of whom worked at city schools, picked up glass from bottles and needles regularly.
“If you can confine even 10 of those needles to an area where staff can clean them up, we might be saving 10 kids or 10 elders who didn’t know what to do with those needles.”
Leah Martin, the intake and discharge manager for the shelter, echoed this when speaking to the Tribune, describing how when she lived in the neighbourhood in 2017, she also found needles laying around then, long before the shelter went in.
She said the shelter is geared towards serving the most vulnerable homeless who may be challenging to house in other facilities.
“Homelessness is a spectrum,” explained Martin, and the facility works in tandem with other services and facilities.
It also has a vetting process, including focusing on those who have lived in the area for at least six months, in contradiction of what was suggested at the June 7 meeting.
Martin explained how staffing shortages have made for significant challenges and the report detailed how the facility was initially filled only to staffing capacity, ramping up as more staff were brought on. She also mentioned the normal seasonal cycle of homeless people moving around to access different services in summer, but the increase people see is not necessarily associated with the shelter.
The shelter fills a gap to house some of those who may not be eligible for shelter at the Cariboo Friendship Society, explained Martin, and aims to connect residents with supports to help them transition out of homelessness. Each resident has a case plan and can stay in the facility during the day as long as they can maintain it. This assists those needing mental health and addictions support to get some of the help they need as well. The program coordinates with other community housing programs like the Jubilee House, which is a more permanent housing facility where people can live for up to two years.
“Homelessness is very complex,” explained Martin, but she also acknowledged mistakes were made in communicating with the community and nearby residents when the contract was extended.
Councillor Scott Nelson had expressed frustration at CMHA and the shelter at the June 7 meeting, but did scale back some of his criticism of service providers and said instead he wanted to “find the right location” and suggested the province step in with funding supports.
Councillor Marnie Brenner spoke in support of council continuing to work with CMHA and BC Housing to support the work they are doing at the shelter, pointing out the successes.
Brenner cited models the city could take from other jurisdictions like Saskatoon, where they use something called alternative response officers to work on building relationships within the homeless community and help connect people to services. The facility was brought in as a temporary shelter in December of 2021 to address homelessness issues in the community being made more critical due to winter weather and the pandemic. While initially planned to close in March of 2022, the shelter was extended for one year as Covid funds were still available.
Read more: Williams Lake homeless shelter remains open day and night due to extreme cold
ruth.lloyd@wltribune.com
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