Kelowna Gospel Mission has released numbers showing a rise in the amount of people registered as homeless.
In 2011 there were 108. So far in 2016 there are 634.
Staff at the Kelowna Gospel Mission said that they are having trouble keeping up with the rise in numbers.
“It is stressful; you’re trying to keep an increasing number of people safe,” Kelowna Gospel Mission’s Phil Whatman said.
The new courtyard and storage units on Leon Avenue are currently at capacity, with 12 more units being ordered.
The city has been working on housing the homeless for years but hasn’t found a solution.
“We’ve put this huge amount of energy into it, a huge amount of money into it and then we go and we see as many people outside as we did before. It’s very, very discouraging,” City Councillor Luke Stack said.
Stack believes affordable housing is the answer.
“The overall strategy from the city is to increase all kinds of rental housing supply. Every kind is important because we will focus sometimes on one or two individual areas but corporately we just need more rental housing period.”
The Gospel Mission has been full every night and staff said they are preparing for a busy winter.