Councillor calls for more winter shelter spaces in Kamloops.
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January 04, 2022 - 12:52 PM
A homeless senior died in the cold earlier this winter and a city councillor is calling for more action to be taken to provide adequate shelter.
Dale Bass said in an emailed media release that news of a citizen dying from hypothermia is distressing.
READ MORE: Senior dies amid homeless shelter shortage in Kamloops
“It speaks not only to the extreme weather our city is again experiencing but also to the reality too many still face a lack of overnight shelter in Kamloops,” she said. “Henry Leland was the last unsheltered person to die on our streets from hypothermia and we had hoped it would never happen again.”
Bass said that despite all the incredible work the Kamloops branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association and the volunteers of Out of the Cold have done, “we failed someone”.
She said council, through city staff, has been raising the issue of shelter space with B.C. Housing since late summer.
“We welcomed the work B.C. Housing has done to identify three more shelters,” she said. “But the delay in opening them is exacerbating the reality of those living on our streets. It is obvious the system in place to ensure sufficient shelter and warming centres is failing in this time of extreme weather.”
Bass said council will be bringing ideas to the next meeting. She said they need to be ready for cold temperatures earlier in the year and rethink how the city provides shelter.
“We need this to be the last winter we leave people sleeping out in the cold,” she said.
The man who died was a Canadian Mental Health Association client and was last seen by shelter staff on Oct. 27, but his body was found on Nov. 3 by outreach staff.
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