Homeless report ready for council

CASTANET May 29:
City Council will receive a draft of the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness at its regular meeting Monday and consider formalizing an existing community-based committee as a Council Advisory Committee to continue progress on the issue. The draft report provides guidance on how to proceed toward the goal of ending homelessness in Kelowna. Home For Good: Kelowna’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness was prepared for the Committee to End Homelessness in partnership with the Poverty and Homelessness Action Team of the Central Okanagan (PHATCO). PHATCO will now take this draft report and use it to focus its ongoing efforts to increase the supply of affordable housing, address the root causes of homelessness and develop prevention strategies.

The Committee to End Homelessness is a community-based group of prominent leaders who are passionate about this cause. The committee has operated at arm’s length from the City of Kelowna since its creation in 2008. Council will now consider bringing the group into the City’s committee system, with up to two members of Council and two citizens from the broader regional community joining the group. The Council Advisory Committee would establish priorities and a timeline within which to implement its plan to end homelessness with input from Council and City staff. The City has made progress on addressing the needs of Kelowna’s homeless and at-risk residents since the Mayor’s Event to End Homelessness was held in 2007. The Cardington Apartments on St. Paul Street opened in the autumn of 2008 and a funding partnership with the provincial government will see three new social housing projects built in Kelowna.