Further help is coming for local governments dealing with homeless encampments so that those living in such camps can receive compassionate assistance, B.C. ministry officials said Sept. 17.
Erin Oscienny of the Ministry of Housing's Engagement and Encampment Response Branch and Allison Dunnet, BC Housing director and strategic advisor for homelessness, addressed Union of B.C. Municipalities' (UBCM) delegates on the challenges with encampments.
Both said responding to the issue means dealing with complex and nuanced issues in encampments, both in big and small towns and big cities.
“It’s fair to acknowledge the strain on all of us in our communities,” said Oscienny as moderator Pete Fry, a Vancouver city councillor nodded in agreement.
Dunnet said 28,000 people were homeless in B.C. in 2022, some living in unstable housing and others in structures not meant for habitation.
Still others have been living in vehicles, a phenomenon also seen across the province.
Dunnet said homelessness is a complex issue that no one agency or level of government can address.
One initiative the province has created to address the issue is the Heart and Hearth program, part of the Belonging in BC homelessness plan.
That plan includes includes the delivery of the Homeless Encampment Action Response Team (HEART) and the Homeless Encampment Action Response Temporary Housing (HEARTH).
'Trauma-informed approaches'
It aims to make homelessness a one-time event for people.
The August 2024 program framework said the government announced in spring 2023 with some $233 million operating funding and $44 million capital funding over three years.
The programs are intended to provide people sheltering in encampments or in public spaces with better access to a range of support services, shelter and housing options.
The idea is to have a comprehensive solution to address homelessness through prevention, immediate response, stability and integration.
Further, the program said, creation of temporary housing with support services can provide the opportunity to free up spaces in existing shelters to bring people indoors, and better assess their individual housing and support needs for permanent housing options.
“Solutions need to incorporate culturally appropriate and trauma-informed approaches to adequately support the disproportionate rates of Indigenous and marginalized individuals that occupy these encampments,” the framework said.
'Collective North Star'
Oscienny said Heart and Hearth programs operate in Abbotsford, Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Prince George and Victoria.
"We are in early days in every community,” she said.
In Vancouver, said Dunnet, the focus is on creating shelter for encampment responses while in Kelowna, it has been about working with partners on responding to large, complex encampments.
“In the past, partners have struggled to respond,” Oscienny said. “Ensuring housing for everyone remains our collective North Star.”
She thanked the UBCM for crafting two resolutions aimed at the provincial government. Those resolutions, to be discussed later in the conference, are about strengthening provincial-local government collaboration for homelessness solutions and expansion of the Heart and Hearth Program.
The conventions runs until Friday.
