After the province set a deadline for homeless camps in Vancouver and Victoria to be vacated amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no plan to make a similar order for the Recreation Avenue camp in Kelowna.
Instead, a hygiene centre has opened and hotel rooms are being tapped as temporary accommodations.
Last week, the province mandated three camps in Vancouver and Victoria be vacated by May 9.
By issuing the ministerial order, the province effectively gave itself and city governments a deadline to get campers into temporary accommodations.
However, the province has no plans to set a similar deadline in Kelowna.
It appears the province doesn’t have the same concerns about Kelowna’s Recreation Avenue camp as it does the camps that are being vacated.
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In Vancouver and Victoria, the size and density of the camps were making health and safety issues worse, the Ministry of Housing said.
In a statement, the ministry added that during the pandemic, it has been a struggle for emergency responders to safely serve the camps in Vancouver and Victoria.
Some have also pointed out that in Kelowna, campers must pack up every morning, likely making it easier to keep the space clean.
However, efforts are being made to address the challenges faced by Kelowna’s homeless population during the pandemic.
Jason Siebenga is managing this hygiene centre the province opened on Ellis Street offering everything from showers to harm reduction supplies.
He said many of the facilities people were used to accessing to have a shower or clean up have shutdown during the pandemic, making the hygiene centre an important services.
Siebenga is calling for empathy towards the city’s homeless population during the pandemic.
“It’s been a very stressful time for people with really no where that they feel really welcome to be,” he said.
In Kelowna, hotel rooms are already being used to bring some indoors and the Ministry of Housing said it continues to negotiate with local hotels to provide more temporary accommodation.
If there was a COVID-19 outbreak among vulnerable people in the city, the province is also looking at bringing people into the currently empty Kelowna Curling Club.
“It is a wide open space where they could put the vulnerable population, with or without COVID-19, in there and then they would have an opportunity to monitor the entire space with less staff,” said the club’s general manager Jock Tyre.
However, the curling club would only be used if needed and, the province said, so far it it’s not necessary.
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