Some Interior homeless shelters will stay open, others are closing

Three Central Okanagan emergency winter shelters are closing within the next few days while others in Kamloops and Penticton will remain open until June.

Kelowna’s 40-bed Welcome Inn was scheduled to close yesterday, March 27, due to a lack of staff, according to an email from B.C. Housing. It’s normally full.

Last week, residents of the temporary Fuller Place shelter in Kelowna started moving into the new Samuel Place supportive housing complex. It has room for 53 people and 46 have moved in. It should be full next week.

Residents of Fuller Place were all scheduled to move to the new facility with others coming from the Welcome Inn but the email did not say how many that will be.

The West Kelowna 40-bed shelter will close, as scheduled, on March 31. Normally about 20 people stay there but it has grown to 30 on cold nights.

Kamloops and Penticton emergency shelters will stay open until June and discussions are ongoing in an effort to keep the Vernon shelter open for as long as possible.

B.C. Housing is trying to find other places for those in the Central Okanagan who will otherwise have no place to go.

Those moving into the new housing – where they will have their own rooms instead of being in a group setting – are being questioned about any COVID-19 symptoms as they move in.

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