Outdoor sheltering site in Central Okanagan grows: ‘We’re seeing a lot of new faces’

Kelowna’s outdoor sheltering site along the rail trail near the city’s downtown has grown significantly in recent months.

“There are at least two to three times as many people here now that the weather has kind of broken and the sun is coming out and whatnot then there were in the wintertime,” said Blake Mercury.

Mercury has been living in a tent since the new year.

He ended up homeless after a roommate situation didn’t work out and he lost his job.

“The restaurant I had been cooking at at the time, Olympia Greek Taverna up in Rutland had burnt to the ground, so I was out of a job,” Mercury told Global News.  “I was on EI (employment insurance), etc., etc., so you can kind of see how the chips fell, if you will.”

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Bill Weedon also fell on hard times. The former construction worker first lost his rental home and then his vehicle.

He’s been living at tent city for about a month now.

“If you don’t have any transportation, where are you going to go,” Weedon said. “People don’t want to see people setting up tents, you know, in public beach accesses or or anything like that and then simply going up into the hills with no transportation is ludicrous.”

Carmen Rempel, who runs the Gospel Mission, said there’s been a huge influx of people sheltering outside.

“There’s several different reasons why we’re seeing more people experiencing homelessness in Kelowna,” Rempel said. “One is that this is a summer town and we do see some people who are chronically homeless who have a habit of being transient in nature, so we see people who will be out on the coast or in Alberta, Saskatchewan and they’re going to come to Kelowna for the summertime.”

But this year, that doesn’t seem to be the only reason why.

“We’re seeing a lot of new faces in Kelowna that we’ve never seen before,” Rempel said. “And these are folks who have been in Vancouver on East Hastings Street, and because of the relocation that was done there, they’ve decided to pack up and move to a different city and so they find themselves here in Kelowna. ”

Rempel added that what’s also very troubling is how many people are falling into homelessness for the very first time due to the economic climate.

“The third reason I think people should really be paying attention to of why we’re seeing so many more people experiencing homelessness in our city, as fact that we have a lot more people who are homeless for the first time ever,” Rempel said.

“We have people who are precariously housed, who are for the first time finding themselves without housing and have to access either shelters or find themselves tenting outside or living in their cars.”

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Heather Friesen is a concerned resident and community advocate who frequents and supports residents of the tent city.

“How society treats its most vulnerable is a reflection on us as a whole and Kelowna is failing miserably,” Friesen said.

Friesen added that supportive housing projects are not being approved fast enough.

“We’re sending supportive housing units to public hearings and people are complaining nonstop about supportive housing and then they’re complaining about this (outdoor sheltering site),” Friesen said.  “You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Stop complaining about everything and start supporting housing.

“If you want this gone, support housing.”

While housing is one part of the solution, Mercury said human compassion is also key.

“We don’t have enough compassion, understanding and unity in our society for one another and that is the biggest piece,” said Mercury.