Kamloops shelter resident ‘insulted’ by mayor’s grilling

CONTENT ADVISORY

A homeless man in Kamloops waited for hours to tell city council not to close a local shelter. As he told council how the shelter has changed his life, he was confronted by a mayor who was skeptical of his story.

As city council was faced with deciding whether to allow the Ask Wellness shelter to keep its doors open, dozens of people spoke at the six-hour public council meeting.

Michael MacDonald was the first.

Like he was waiting for the box office to open for a concert ticket, he was there hours early, wanting to get back to the Pathways shelter on Tranquille Road where he left his dog. He finally got to say his piece an hour into the meeting, pleading for council to keep the shelter open.

“There’s care, there’s concern and there’s action. Don’t take it away,” he said at the council meeting. “Closing Pathways is against everything a community should stand for.”

As he turned to leave, Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson called him back.

A skeptical Hamer-Jackson said he’d been waking up early to tour the streets for years and “never ran into” MacDonald and seemed to have doubts that MacDonald’s story was true.

“This was a very staged event,” Hamer-Jackson told iNFOnews.ca after the meeting.

MacDonald, 64, said he went to the council meeting on his own accord. After being homeless for years, the eight months he’s spent at the shelter had helped him put his life back in order but he’s not ready to move somewhere else yet.

While he didn’t back down from Hamer-Jackson’s questions it wasn’t what he expected from the mayor.

“I was insulted, but I was more than happy to engage with him,” MacDonald told iNFOnews.ca.

“It just takes so much patience to listen to fools, and lucky for all involved, I have that kind of patience. The point of the matter was Pathways should not be closed. That was the only matter on the table.”

The mayor asked MacDonald whether he had ever stayed in supportive housing and why he remained in an emergency shelter before his microphone was cut off.

Hamer-Jackson has long been skeptical of local non-profits and has repeatedly claimed their shelters are underused while their occupancy tallies are overstated. The claims have been denied by local shelter operators multiple times.

The mayor was skeptical about MacDonald being homeless and skeptical he went to the council meeting without Ask Wellness’ direction.

“A guy that says he would prefer to live in a shelter, over the thousands of people I’ve met over 12 years… he’s the first one that said he wanted to stay in shelter,” Hamer-Jackson said.

MacDonald laughed at the suggestion.

“I read him from the moment he started interrogating me that he thought I was some kind of plant,” he said.

“I have been lost for many, many years, and guess what put me back on track? Pathways, and that motherfucker stood there and tried to call me out as some kind of plant,” he said.

Ask Wellness CEO Bob Hughes balked at the suggestion that MacDonald’s comments were staged, adding that it was a “new low” for Hamer-Jackson and “damaging” to the homeless community.

“This kind of suggestion is fuelling dissent and polarization in the community, and my position… is hoping for leaders who bring us together, not try to pull us apart,” Hughes said.

After hours of comments from the public, both for and against the shelter, intertwined with a bickering mayor and council, the extension to BC Housing was granted.

BC Housing wanted to continue running the Tranquille Road shelter for three years, but council opted for a 20-month permit.

It has been operating on a previous 20-month permit, which came with the expectation that BC Housing would find a new location before the permit ended.

Councillors Mike O’Reilly and Katie Neustaeter did not take part in the vote, declaring a conflict of interest. Hamer-Jackson was the only dissenting vote in a 6-1 council decision.