Shelter for Homeless?

[Ken7]

I agree with much of what you are saying. There are some people who have been living an addicted street entrenched life for awhile and have settled into that lifestyle. So they don't want to change and they don't want to be where there are any rules. They don't want to take medication that may help with their mental health. These are usually the ones who cause disorder and disruption if they do go into shelters or housing. These are the people who make it difficult and disheartening for workers trying to maintain safety within a shelter setting. This is why workers burn out, quit, refuse to go back to that field of work. Does society really owe the disruptors a place to destroy?

But for those who do want to get off of drugs or who have a combination of mental health and addiction there are not enough resources to help them. For a decade or more not enough public financing and oversight has gone into affordable public resources to help people. The public facilities that could help them were closed down hoping private enterprise would pick up the baton, that hasn't happened, many of those vulnerable people ended up on the street some becoming addicted. Now we are crying for public funding to build smaller facilities/housing with addiction and mental health supports.

There are line ups of people who want help, just not visible line ups, rather there are wait lists to get into affordable housing with supports for long term "addiction recovery" or housing that provides help to maintain a regular schedule of taking medication to help with mental health. More people are acquiring brain injury from the drugs they are taking and from lack of oxygen to the brain when they overdose. Many of these people don't have the cognitive ability to realize the drugs are killing them or what to do about it.

The majority of funding for this type of housing is on the coast, the Okanagan has very few places for rehab and recovery and yes there are wait lists to get in those which are here.

In addition to all of that we are suffering from an affordable housing crisis. Over the past decade+ not enough focus has been put on building affordable rentals, affordable housing. In our current race to provide affordable housing we can't forget the need for supportive recovery/dry housing and supportive housing for people with complex needs (mental health and addiction illness).

Sorry for the long post.

Thanks for your post. As I or any of my family are in need there are things we and many others are unaware of.

Let's hope our new Premier looks into these matter and change is made. At this time, the number are only increasing.

In saying this, I cannot and would not be in favor of controlled clean drugs, and or wet houses. I feel this is a no end to the current situation.

[FreeRights]

I still am on the fence about wet shelters. If there was only dry shelters I think more ppl would get on board re building more facilities

You aren't wrong, but if the options that exist are wet shelters or homeless people freezing to death on the side of the street, I'd argue most people would suddenly be supporting wet shelters.

[normaM]

Like to think you were right but not so sure.

[polelady]

Update for the Homeless.. (shelter dashboard)

https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/3 ... ess#397648

Now if we the taxpayers provide a new Iphone for all the homeless and a cell plan they can access this information , all is good... love modern technology..

[spooker]

Update for the Homeless.. (shelter dashboard)

https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/3 ... ess#397648

Now if we the taxpayers provide a new Iphone for all the homeless and a cell plan they can access this information , all is good... love modern technology..

The best part about it right now, the shelters themselves have access to the dashboard so that when someone shows up they can direct them to an open bed if they themselves are at capacity ... though it will mean a possibility for a bit of travel required I'm hoping that the workers can make sure they don't send someone somewhere and by the time they get there it's been taken ...

After having to put out a purse on fire Monday morning in front of Bernard storefront at 6:30am that two people were using the keep warm it was hard to get them to even head to Timmies as the woman was saying that her feet were completely frozen ... called for a health check so they could get some help in the end that I couldn't provide myself ...

[polelady]

Ok tks understand the dash board thing more now... and if we had uber the homeless can grab it and run to a warm bed... opps no UBER as far as I know... and heaven forbid if a city official wants to view the facility.. they have to book ahead...lol

[captkirkcanada]

Update for the Homeless.. (shelter dashboard)

https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/3 ... ess#397648

Now if we the taxpayers provide a new Iphone for all the homeless and a cell plan they can access this information , all is good... love modern technology..

The best part about it right now, the shelters themselves have access to the dashboard so that when someone shows up they can direct them to an open bed if they themselves are at capacity ... though it will mean a possibility for a bit of travel required I'm hoping that the workers can make sure they don't send someone somewhere and by the time they get there it's been taken ...

After having to put out a purse on fire Monday morning in front of Bernard storefront at 6:30am that two people were using the keep warm it was hard to get them to even head to Timmies as the woman was saying that her feet were completely frozen ... called for a health check so they could get some help in the end that I couldn't provide myself ...

Yea everyone is different so i try observe a person a lil bit to see if i can pick up how to help them best . Wool anything because it will keep a person warm if wet or damp , winter boots , some gloves , touques , if i had more money id go to second hand stores and buy all the used winter jackets an hand them out .

[Patron]

The best part about it right now, the shelters themselves have access to the dashboard so that when someone shows up they can direct them to an open bed if they themselves are at capacity ... though it will mean a possibility for a bit of travel required I'm hoping that the workers can make sure they don't send someone somewhere and by the time they get there it's been taken ...

After having to put out a purse on fire Monday morning in front of Bernard storefront at 6:30am that two people were using the keep warm it was hard to get them to even head to Timmies as the woman was saying that her feet were completely frozen ... called for a health check so they could get some help in the end that I couldn't provide myself ...

Yea everyone is different so i try observe a person a lil bit to see if i can pick up how to help them best . Wool anything because it will keep a person warm if wet or damp , winter boots , some gloves , touques , if i had more money id go to second hand stores and buy all the used winter jackets an hand them out .

it's too bad there isn't anything available where one could wash and dry all these items, it's a shame to see so many good blankets, clothing etc being thrown in the landfill just because they are dirty

[captkirkcanada]

Yea everyone is different so i try observe a person a lil bit to see if i can pick up how to help them best . Wool anything because it will keep a person warm if wet or damp , winter boots , some gloves , touques , if i had more money id go to second hand stores and buy all the used winter jackets an hand them out .

it's too bad there isn't anything available where one could wash and dry all these items, it's a shame to see so many good blankets, clothing etc being thrown in the landfill just because they are dirty

Yea i agree

[spooker]

The best part about it right now, the shelters themselves have access to the dashboard so that when someone shows up they can direct them to an open bed if they themselves are at capacity ... though it will mean a possibility for a bit of travel required I'm hoping that the workers can make sure they don't send someone somewhere and by the time they get there it's been taken ...

After having to put out a purse on fire Monday morning in front of Bernard storefront at 6:30am that two people were using the keep warm it was hard to get them to even head to Timmies as the woman was saying that her feet were completely frozen ... called for a health check so they could get some help in the end that I couldn't provide myself ...

Yea everyone is different so i try observe a person a lil bit to see if i can pick up how to help them best . Wool anything because it will keep a person warm if wet or damp , winter boots , some gloves , touques , if i had more money id go to second hand stores and buy all the used winter jackets an hand them out .

Yeah, I used to carry a toonie or two when I went out for runs in the morning just for the ones that I came across but haven't done that in a while ... and the useful stuff we had for donation has already gone to the Gospel Mission ... I even looked up the Gospel Mission first just in case I could call them for the health check before calling the government services for the same ...

[captkirkcanada]

Yea everyone is different so i try observe a person a lil bit to see if i can pick up how to help them best . Wool anything because it will keep a person warm if wet or damp , winter boots , some gloves , touques , if i had more money id go to second hand stores and buy all the used winter jackets an hand them out .

Yeah, I used to carry a toonie or two when I went out for runs in the morning just for the ones that I came across but haven't done that in a while ... and the useful stuff we had for donation has already gone to the Gospel Mission ... I even looked up the Gospel Mission first just in case I could call them for the health check before calling the government services for the same ...

Yea i think the real wall is resources . Ppl only can do with what they have . I think most ppl wish they could do more .

[Patron]

there should be a service where these items could get dropped off and laundered, I mean we're all paying a carbon tax to help save the environment yet we we're letting this happen ? I can't imagine how much of our Landfills are full of good clothing, blankets etc just because nobody wants to recycle it by washing it. Maybe some of that "carbon tax" could be used for something like this.

[captkirkcanada]

Distilary is donating hot food for ppl without homes for every product they sell . Just dont after enjoying snd use responsibaly

https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/39 ... day-season

[alanjh595]

Distilary is donating hot food for ppl without homes for every product they sell . Just dont after enjoying snd use responsibaly

https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/39 ... day-season

Nothing like kicking sand in the face of a benefactor.

[spooker]

there should be a service where these items could get dropped off and laundered, I mean we're all paying a carbon tax to help save the environment yet we we're letting this happen ? I can't imagine how much of our Landfills are full of good clothing, blankets etc just because nobody wants to recycle it by washing it. Maybe some of that "carbon tax" could be used for something like this.

While there is an aspect of climate change that could loosely be tied to the rising population of homeless I think the revenue from carbon taxes is already being allocated for efforts to recover from other effects caused by said ...

We used to have a lot of donation bins downtown for clothing but they got pulled out of circulation as the rate of people being injured and/or killed rose and there wasn't a good solution being engineered to make them safe ... the biggest hurdle to stopping textiles from going into the landfills is more about entitlement, it's not convenient enough for people to not just bin them instead ...

We're not "letting" it happen as much as we are "designing" it by our lifestyles ...