Journey Home task force says new group needed to manage homelessness program

KELOWNA – Ending functional homelessness in Kelowna is going to require an ongoing organizational effort by what’s being called a backbone organization.

That organization doesn’t yet exist, Kelowna councillors heard, but when it comes into being, it must be neutral and cannot be a non-profit society that’s already at the table.

“It can’t be existing. It can’t have any baggage,” Dr. Alina Turner told Kelowna councillors. “It will be biased but biased toward ending homelessness.”

The creation of the backbone organization is key to managing the five-year, $47-million plan to control homelessness in Kelowna, Turner told councillors, and runs the risk of dissolution without it.

Turner Strategies acted as consultant to the Journey Home task force during development of the pan, which envisions adding 110 supportive housing units to 190 that are already in planning or discussion stages with B.C. Housing.

Those units would be set aside for the most chronic homeless; the 200 to 300 people that are street entrenched with concurrent addictions or mental health problems, Turner said.

As those people are housed and their needs met, Turner said the strategy will move up the continuum to aim at people who are at risk of homelessness or in precarious housing situations.

As part of the price tag, Kelowna taxpayers will shoulder $2.7 million over the next five years to pay for staff and office space during the transition from the task force to the backbone organization.

While over half of the $47 million will likely come from federal and provincial program, Turner told councillors some $18 million is needed to build the 110 units she estimates the city will need of the plan is to work.

Councillors were universal in their praise of the plan and agreed to add $50,000 in the 2018 budget for additional staff resources.

The draft plan will be presented for council approval sometime in late June.

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