Interior Health opened this Kamloops complex care site roughly two weeks before one of its residents started a fire in the basement. RCMP are investigating it as an arson.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

A care home that tries to help the hardest people to house in Kamloops will be reopened after one of its residents lit the basement on fire.

Police were called to the Valleyview home last month for an arson and a woman was later arrested. What police didn't say at the time was the home was one of Interior Health's complex care sites.

The care home had taken on its first client just two weeks before the fire.

"It doesn't give us any confidence," neighbour Ralph Smith said. "Every time you see someone going down the street now, you cringe."

Kamloops RCMP were called just before noon to the 2600 block of Valleyview Drive on Oct. 22. They met with staff standing outside on the street before taking off to find the arson suspect, while fire trucks arrived shortly after, according to neighbours.

She was arrested a few blocks away, while another police officer came by telling Smith to evacuate in case the fire spread.

Firefighters were able to stop the fire before it spread beyond the house. The smell of smoke was apparent outside the front door, but it wasn't obvious there was a fire when looking at the house from the street.

The Valleyview house was the third complex care site opened by Interior Health this year. It's part of a provincial effort to build new facilities for some of the most vulnerable people. They could have mental illness, addictions or both, and they are often homeless before moving into the sites.

Interior Health was funded for 20 beds, and the group home model is intended to make it as "home-like" as possible, avoiding a larger institutional facility, according to the health authority's director for mental health and substance use Carla Mantie.

READ MORE: How Interior Health's 'complex care' facilities differ from other housing

Overall, Mantie said the complex care sites in Kamloops, the first of which opened in January, have been working well, giving helping residents with health-care goals, addictions treatment and life skills.

Residents in the Valleyview area, however, said they weren't aware of what the health authority was planning for the home.

The health authority leased the property in the spring, but renovations started in May before the City approved a building permit. That's when residents started asking questions.

"Once we heard that, we reached out to the City and Interior Health to find out what was going on," Smith's wife Melanie said. "There was no communication at all until we started pursuing it."

Interior Health representatives, including Mantie, met with neighbours to brief them on the complex care program and assured its residents sign "good neighbour" agreements.

"We all kind of felt like it was basically platitudes, like 'it'll all be good, it'll be fine,'" Melanie said.

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Residents in the area have been watchful since they learned why Interior Health was renovating the home on Valleyview Drive.

Neighbour Brenda Sparks told iNFOnews.ca she began checking the perimeter of her yard each time her three-year-old went outside.

Another neighbour, Peter Gross, spoke to iNFOnews.ca briefly while babysitting his grandchildren. He said he watched a black SUV pull up for what he perceived to be a drug deal with a resident within days of its opening.

"It's been maybe two weeks that they've had clients in there. The first one was a lady who we understand had obvious problems, and then the fire happened," Melanie said. "We were told the fire started in a bathroom by one of the clients and she was arrested. In the meantime, the fire is happening, we were evacuated."

She wasn't sure whether the health authority planned to reopen it, but she's now concerned for neighbourhood safety after the fire.

"In all our inquiries as to why they established this home in this neighbourhood, which is basically seniors and very young families, we were told everyone needs a home, it would be safe and we would not be impacted. We have not found that to be the case," Melanie said.

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Interior Health operates the facility and has a clinical team for its complex care sites, but contractor Active Care Services that staffs the employees at the homes who are there 24/7. Under the contract, it has two people in the home at all times.

Active Care didn't respond to an inquiry from iNFOnews.ca, but Mantie said the contractor's been a "great partner" and helped with the program since its inception.

While the residents are skeptical of the program's future, she said complex care sites are better for its residents than placing them into large institutions.

"We are saddened that the fire occurred, but our vision is still the same. It's to be good neighbours, be good roommates and manage this as well as we can," she said.

It's not clear whether Interior Health has a timeline to reopen the home in Valleyview for six of its clients, but Mantie is looking forward to growing the program and getting that home opened again.

"This housing is to support people with multiple and complex conditions who have been precariously housed for what could be a number of years," she said. "I would say from my experience, so far, it's been really great."

Some residents have been able to see a doctor regularly after years on the street, cook meals for themselves for the first time, and one resident got into a drug treatment facility with a guaranteed bed to return to once the program is completed, according to Mantie.

"I know these sound like really simple things, but they're huge to someone who's been precariously housed for years," she said.

The initiative also has the support of some on city council, including Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson and councillor Dale Bass.

"I believe in it. I don't believe in warehousing," Bass said. "If we want people to find their way back into a home, to some sort of normal housing, we need to start by putting them in one and showing them how to live there."

She said it's unfortunate the fire happened, but she's satisfied the courts will look after the alleged arsonist and the health-care site can reopen for its residents.

Meanwhile, Hamer-Jackson said he'd heard of the arson investigation at a complex care facility, but he was dismayed at what he sees as unfair focus on facilities that serve the "hardest to house." He said issues like those at his car lot, across from a supportive housing site and two shelters, don't get enough attention.

He implied non-profits like Ask Wellness or Canadian Mental Health Association should get more media attention related to issues at their facilities instead.

"Here we're focusing again on something that has a lot more services... You have a little fire in Valleyview in a complex care unit, and yet, I've had three fires behind my building, my vehicle's just torched. Why is it that you guys are afraid to say who it is?" he said.

Multiple news outlets have reported on the two car fires on Hamer-Jackson's car lot, but no one has been charged in either incident. Although surveillance footage captured one person walking across the street toward the Rosethorn supportive housing site shortly after the first fire started last year, it's not clear whether he went to the building or was associated with it.

As for the arson investigation in Valleyview, police did arrest a woman shortly after the report. She was later released with conditions, but prosecutors haven't approved any charges.

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