The Canadian Mental Health Association is not, normally, in the business of sheltering people.
“We’re not,” said Dani Moretti, director of programs and services with CMHA Kelowna and District. “We run a lot of programs supporting the mental health of our community and supportive housing units. Shelter is not our business.”
But this week’s cold weather prompted the CMHA to do just that.
“This week, we’ve opened a 20-individual mat program that allows people to come in from the cold, from 7 p.m. until 8 a.m., each night,” Moretti said. “It’s really the humane thing to do.”
This season, there is an unprecedented number of people sheltering outside.
In Kelowna alone, it’s estimated to be around 150 people.
Moretti said with the need so great, and shelters full, CMHA has had to turn people away every night this week.
“It’s really, really challenging, knowing that if they’re not in here, there is nowhere else to go,” she said.
It’s a recurring problem every winter and shelter providers have had enough.
Last week, six organizations across the Southern Interior penned a strongly worded letter to decision-makers, including BC Housing, to address the issue once and for all.
The service providers are calling on more supportive housing units instead of the uncertainty around finding suitable shelters and additional workers to staff them.
“We have a strong feeling that we will finally have the ear of decision-makers around the conversation of how broken the shelter system is,” said Stephanie Gauthier, executive director of the Central Okanagan Journey Home Society.
While Journey Home — which is tasked with ending homelessness by executing a supportive housing strategy — wasn’t among the six organizations to write the letter, it supports it.
“We absolutely support and echo the feelings of our partners around this,” Gauthier told Global News.
Since 2018, there have been 318 supportive housing units built in Kelowna. But according to Journey Home, more than 500 are still needed over the next four years.
“We anticipate that’s going to address the multitude of growing needs,” Gauthier said.
Gauthier said she made BC Housing aware of the need for 516 more units earlier in the year, but, so far, there’s been no action to achieve that goal.
“We’ve painted the picture for what the housing need looks like for supportive housing, and here we are, six months down the road. There are no shovels in the ground,” she said.
In an email to Global News, BC Housing said it’s listening to the concerns brought forward by operators in the Interior, and that it’s working with the province to address what it calls “root causes of homelessness” and its many challenges.
But BC Housing failed to answer whether anything was in the works to address the additional units that are being called for.
“We haven’t had any indication from partners from BC Housing at this point that there’s any development planned,” Gauthier said.
“Certainly, there’s always discussion around a willingness to look at these, but, you know, looking at things doesn’t materialize into housing.”
BC Housing also stated that it expects more emergency shelters will open in the coming weeks and months in many communities around the province.
It added that while funding for additional shelters is available, there are challenges in some communities around identifying suitable sites and securing shelter providers to operate facilities.
BC Housing and its partners will continue to update the community.