City takes steps to confront homelessness
The City of Kelowna, together with the provincial government, has begun to deal with the challenges arising out of the growing population of homeless people.
It is a complex issue involving a multitude of factors including: unemployment, lack of income, possible addiction, mental illness, family separations and outright discrimination. But now it appears that the city is planning to devote both staff and funds to address it.
The Social Development Department is charged with heading up the effort to, “support and connect local change makers and facilitate collective action among diverse leaders to enhance social wellness and respond to various complex community challenges,” as stated in its official purpose.
The homeless initiative has six clearly-articulated objectives: Build capacity to deal with homelessness, promote innovation in dealing with homelessness, promote leading practices, improve data both in quality and sources, reduce internal silos in city activities and build and convene, co-ordinate and collaborate among all the multitude of groups involved in some way dealing with this issue.
Now all of this sounds just fine. But it is delivery of effective results that ratepayers are looking for, both the long-term reduction of the homeless population and short-term policies and programs that will aid in the transition of those currently homeless to being permanently housed.
There is reason, however, to hope that things will improve, given the priority that this problem is now accorded by the provincial government in Victoria and the increased provision of funds to municipalities such as Kelowna, together with the appointment of a motivated, knowledgeable and focused individual to head up the Social Development Office.
Colleen Cornock, a long-time employee of local government, is the person in charge and she is impressive. Her knowledge of the issue, both its complexity and the large number of stakeholders involved is inspiring. Prior to her appointment as Director of Social Development, Colleen led development of Kelowna’s first-ever Community Safety Plan involving a number of different institutions and individuals, so she is familiar with building co-ordinated responses to each and every action. That will certainly be a necessary skill if this is going to work.
She has mapped out the initiative under five main topics: housing and shelters, upstream prevention (addressing the causes of homelessness), planning (articulating what actions will be undertaken and how they will achieve the desired results), funding and advocacy (raising the funding and advocating both to local government and the community at large about the nature of the issue and what will need to be done), and communication and education of the public at large
Achieving results on these objectives will take time. Her first task, having constructed the framework of what needs to be done by whom and offered some ideas of how that might happen, is to build a focused and motivated staff beyond herself and one assistant. She figures that will be her major task between now and the end of June.
She has also outlined what she believes the public can expect. In other words, what are the mechanisms of accountability, something that is all too often forgotten or ignored.
Colleen has her work cut out for her. I wonder how she will do it all, but I have no doubt she will accomplish these goals and more. We should count ourselves fortunate that Kelowna has such talent available.
David Bond is a retired economist who lives in Kelowna.
NEW YORK — Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in allblack, leading to his nickname “The Prince of Pain,” has died. He was 76.
Lewis, who revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2023, died at his home in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack.
A regular performer in clubs and on latenight TV for decades, Lewis also played Marty Gold, the romantic co-lead opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, in the ABC series “Anything
But Love” and the reliably neurotic Prince John in “Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men In Tights.” He re-introduced himself to a new generation opposite Larry David in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” kvetching regularly.
Comedy Central named Lewis one of the top 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he earned a berth in GQ magazine’s list of the “20th Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He lent his humor for charity causes, including Comic Relief and Comedy Gives Back.