Couple with mental and physical health challenges living in pickup truck in Kelowna
Due to the housing and health-care crises, an Okanagan couple have been living in their pickup truck with their cat for more than a year.
Holly Sheree Holborn and her husband Trevor Skinner have been homeless since June, 2021, and are currently parked in Kelowna.
“We are staying at the Kelowna Walmart,” Holborn said. “Unfortunately, we risk being told to leave at any time.”
The couple is living off income assistance, and any bottles and cans they can gather from posting on their social media. They have mental and physical health problems, along with a damaged truck that requires expensive repairs.
“My mental and behavioural disorders get in the way of things as I am unmedicated and cannot get in to see a psychiatrist for a minimum of 12 months,” Holborn said. “My husband has undiagnosed learning and behavioural issues so he also is on a one-year waiting list for a psychiatrist.”
She said they recently lost their family doctor and Skinner has type 1 diabetes that has become problematic.
“His diabetes limits his ability to work,” Holborn said. “He has high hemoglobin A1C levels that cause his blood sugars to rise and fall, sometimes without any warning. We currently depend on newly made friends to keep his insulin in their fridges for us.”
Initially it was the loss of Skinner’s employment at a warehouse in Calgary in 2019 and the consequent loss of housing that eventually led the couple to the unthinkable living situation.
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They spent the past two seasons picking fruit in Okanagan orchards from June to October.
Holborn said they stopped a couple of weeks ago after her husband broke his ankle in a freak accident.
“I was backing out of a parking stall and didn't realize he had not backed away enough yet and accidentally ran it over,” she said. “It is the first time I ever hurt someone and I feel bad.”
She guesses it will take a few months for the ankle to heal.
Another thing limiting the couple's options is the thousands of dollars of truck repairs needed after an accident last year.
“The accident was on the Zeballos Forest Service road due to the grader operator creating too high of windrows as well as tearing boulders out of the road which is what we unfortunately hit,” Holborn said. “It was deemed a collision so we had to pay the $500 deductible even though it was unavoidable.”
She guesses the 2014 Ram 1500 Sport needs about $12,000 of repairs.
“ICBC paid around $13,000,” she said. “We can’t get rid of the truck for something cheaper either. Our hope is to get our truck repaired and then get a travel trailer, which is why we came to work in the orchards. That money is spent on repairs and day-to-day needs.”
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The next thing the couple needs for their truck is a clutch fan.
“If people want to donate cans or bottles they can go to a depot with an Express Kiosk enter the phone number 250-230-4255 and attach the stickers to the bags and place them in the designated area. It gets loaded to our account."
Hundreds of British Columbians are struggling to survive in a current housing crisis with sky high rent costs and not enough affordable housing options. A recent report said 23,000 people experienced homelessness in 2019.
“We are lucky that we have plenty of blankets," Holborn said. "What we really need is more foam mats though, as we are using five of our blankets to cushion our bed area.”
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