Kamloops council claims BC Housing backed out of drug recovery project

A new housing minister means new policies. For Kamloops, it means a new supportive housing project won’t offer drug recovery supports despite assurances earlier this year.

That’s according to councillor Bill Sarai, who said previous housing minister Ravi Kahlon would have arranged for a contentious BC Housing project to restrict drug use for its tenants in favour of recovery supports.

“We had a minister in a meeting that said he would support recovery-based housing if we had data to support it,” Sarai said at a council meeting today, Dec. 9.

He was speaking while council debated whether to lobby new Housing Minister Christine Boyle to change plans for an North Kamloops supportive housing project.

It’s a project that was met with opposition from neighbourhood residents, who voiced concern over the prospect that the project would allow drug use and exacerbate social issues in the neighbourhood, including petty crime, open drug use and homelessness.

Coun. Kelly Hall proposed the two-part notice of motion, which was unanimously adopted by council.

It would see council lobby Boyle to focus on more recovery-focused housing, including for the controversial Leigh Road project. It would also put council down a path to charging BC Housing development cost charges for future projects, which it’s currently exempt from in Kamloops.

The commitment to recovery housing Sarai raised was met with a warning from councillor Mike O’Reilly that Sarai take care in discussing closed council conversations. Sarai carried on to ask a non-profit representative about whether there is local data that shows a demand for such housing.

Jeff Arlitt, who manages a men’s recovery program at the Mustard Seed, said the program’s 12 beds are consistently full and there’s currently a 40-person waitlist. He didn’t speak to demand throughout the city.

Several councillors, including Sarai, Katie Neustaeter and Dale Bass, expressed frustration with BC Housing, claiming the Crown agency is failing to meet local demands. They said Boyle, who replaced Kahlon in a July cabinet shuffle, has focused on a lower-barrier housing despite what local governments have called for.

“I’m putting this on the minister’s lap because she’s made it clear all she cares about is wet (housing), not recovery,” Bass said.

It’s not dissimilar to a recent vote in Penticton, which saw the South Okanagan city turn down a BC Housing tiny house project that would have allowed for the eviction of a large, controversial encampment.

Boyle said the Penticton decision was confusing. While its city council advocated for the tiny home project for months, councillors voted it down in a 4-2 decision out of concern for the use of safe consumption sites, rather than a restriction on drug use.

Whether a recover-focused and so-called dry housing project would be filled with tenants isn’t clear.

While Arlitt said the Mustard Seed program is consistently full, another non-profit has found those beds often go empty in a supportive housing site.

Canadian Mental Health Association Kamloops executive director Alfred Achoba previous told iNFOnews.ca the demand for low-barrier supportive housing, geared toward getting unhoused people into stable homes, is focused on those that allow for safe drug use. Dry facilities, meanwhile, are difficult to keep filled with tenants.