Homeless in West Kelowna to get more help this spring
A new program to help the homeless in West Kelowna will start April 1.
Services to street people will include trying to connect them with stable housing and improving their employment and life skills.
“The homeless problem in West Kelowna seems to be getting worse,” Gloria Helfrick of Partners in Resources (PIERS) said Thursday.
“We’re seeing that the number of people staying at the overnight shelter, and using the lunch program offered by the Westbank United Church, is definitely on the incline,” Helfrick said.
PIERS has received funding from the federal government’s antihomelessness program to work with about 20 street people, Helfrick said, although they hope to increase that number.
Since 2005, PIERS has been providing housing, life skills and employment counselling to vulnerable populations in the Central and South Okanagan. It also assists with clients’ more immediate, “basic needs,” trying to ensure a less dangerous existence on the streets.
The non-profit society’s expansion into West Kelowna comes amid growing civic concern about the homeless population in the city.
For the second season, an overnight shelter is operating out of the Emmanuel Church in Westbank, drawing dozens of people every night, and efforts are underway to establish a daytime dropin centre for the homeless.
The City of West Kelowna gave the West Kelowna Shelter Society a grant of $20,000 in December to try to accelerate planning for the dropin centre.
“We cannot wait thee years for a daytime drop-in centre,” Coun. Duane Ophus said at the meeting where the grant was approved. “This is a severe problem, especially in the winter months. People in desperate need have nowhere to go, and we have to do something about that.”
In the coming months, Helfrick says, PIERS will try to establish relationships with supportive local landlords to increase the housing options available to the homeless.