Election turns up heat on Kelowna council to solve homelessness

YEAR IN REVIEW

Kelowna mayoral candidate Tom Dyas raised eyebrows during the civic election with his plan to help set up a working farm for homeless people.

Dyas said a family was willing to provide land for such a venture, well outside the downtown core, where people struggling with various problems might be able to turn their lives around.

Dyas ultimately failed in his bid to unseat former friend and current Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran, with Basran fairly easily winning re-election on Oct. 20 with 57 per cent of all votes cast.

But Dyas’s campaign did gain traction among the not inconsiderable number of Kelowna residents who are increasingly frustrated with issues such as homelessness, open drug use and petty crime plaguing downtown.

The city’s own research shows at least 20 per cent of residents feel downtown is unsafe, and council has long identified addressing social problems as its top priority.

This year, the city approved its anti-homelessness strategy, called Journey Home. It calls for the spending of $47 million, most of it to come from other levels of government, to build new supportive housing complexes offering stable accommodation to the homeless and drug-involved.

Between 2019 and 2024, the ambitious plan aims to house 2,100 people who would otherwise be homeless.

“I’m really happy with where we’re at,” Basran said in May as the Journey Home strategy was endorsed. “With the buy-in from the community, this is possible.”

A new agency will be tasked with taking the lead on the homeless file, working to provide the co-ordination between various agencies said to have been lacking in the past.

At the first meeting after he was re-elected, Basran reaffirmed efforts to address homelessness as council’s top priority in the coming years. “Social issues, especially homelessness and sense of safety, are No. 1,” he said.

But every proposal aimed at housing the homeless brings controversy.

A shelter made out of a vacant two-storey building on Leon Avenue sparked many complaints from nearby landlords and business owners about a surge in vandalism, drug use and other problem behaviours.

And early in January, council will face considerable opposition from people living near a proposed supportive housing complex on Agassiz Road, between Springfield Road and Harvey Avenue.

What particularly bothers some critics is the ability of people to move into the complex but still do drugs and drink alcohol.

But Interior Health and BC Housing says this is the new approach in helping people: first, provide them with a safe and secure place to live, and then try to connect them with the programs and services that can help them.

Beyond the drug and homelessness issues, Basran touts an optimistic view of downtown Kelowna. The city is spending more on bylaw enforcement and police, he says, and private development worth hundreds of millions of dollars shows most people regard it as an attractive and desirable place.

“Our downtown is becoming more vibrant and rejuvenated,” Basran said at a mayoral election forum on Oct. 16.

His healthy margin of victory a few days later indicates people either agree with him or are at least willing to give him the chance to tackle the problems they’re concerned about.