Pop-up drop-in centres for homeless people in Kamloops

An initiative to host a pop-up drop-in services for homeless people in Kamloops starts this weekend.

Headed by volunteers who previously operated The Loop on Tranquille Road, they’ll hand out food and clothes to clients at scattered locations each weekend for seven weeks.

Organizer Glenn Hilke said the volunteers behind Nomads, short for Networking Outreach Meals Advocacy and Development Supports, will launch behind Pizza Pi in downtown Kamloops, but he’s looking for more businesses to take part.

“The idea is that in a four-hour block of time, a person would experience a microcosm of what they would get if they went into a drop-in centre,” he said.

It’s Hilke’s first new initiative since The Loop was closed last year, which became a controversial site as it hosted a congregation of clients, often homeless people, at its building along Tranquille Road. It was a day space that provided food and clothes to the downtrodden, while attracting frustration from neighbouring businesses and residents.

Volunteers at The Loop also offered transportation and assisted people in getting to appointments, often health-care related. Hilke said volunteers at the pop-up sites will take on similar work, which might include helping arrange a shelter bed, a bus ticket or simply access to a phone.

“As much as possible we’re going to get people certified as ‘peers’ — through Interior Health and other agencies — to be the face at these pop-ups. The rest of us are behind the scenes producers, making sure everything’s there,” he said. “We’ve identified a couple of funding sources that would pay them for their time.”

The roving drop-in centre will run for the next seven weekends as a pilot project, launching Nov. 15 behind Pizza Pi on Victoria Street, then Nov. 16 behind Same Sky Art Collective on Tranquille Road.