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A proposed North Kamloops shelter would add 44 beds to a homeless support network squeezed for space, but it's getting pushback ahead of its approval.

Business owners have voiced their concern for the 142 Tranquille Road shelter, suggesting it would bring more transient people to the places they work.

"I'm just concerned as it's a nighttime shelter, and as people are leaving in the morning is peak times for my customers coming there," Rob Guido of Drago's Autopro said at a council meeting this week. "We worked really hard to get where we are, $2 million invested and nowhere near getting it paid off, and I'm just concerned about our future."

He was one of a several people to voice their opposition to the planned facility at the council meeting along with Daryl Smeeton who runs the non-profit Active Care Services. 

"While we acknowledge the necessity of shelters, we have to mitigate the risk," he said.

"I know you guys and the mayor aren't seeing eye-to-eye on things, but for our sake as a community, on these kind of matters, we really hope you can see eye-to-eye and come together on this stuff, because it affects us," Smeeton told council just after Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson left the meeting after a disagreement over conflict of interest.

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If approved, the shelter will pilot the Access Hub within the facility, bringing connections to other services like healthcare and housing. It's a model based, at least in part, on a list of requirements created by the North Shore business association.

The first iteration of the Access Hub shelter hasn't gone exactly as planned, however, as plans to use a property the city was going to buy fell through, while the services offered are only there for the 44 shelter-goers.

The North Shore business association hasn't yet thrown its support behind the shelter, eyed for the former Butler RV dealership. Executive director Jeremy Heighton said the board and business owners still have questions about the project before coming to a conclusion.

Although the lease is set to expire within 20 months, it would be the first year-round shelter in North Kamloops to open since 2018. If given the green light, it's expected to open by mid-December and will be operated by Ask Wellness.

As winter approaches, Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is set to take on the emergency weather response for shelter spaces in Kamloops.

Although the organization balked at contributing to last-minute emergency shelter projects in recent years, with its executive director Alfred Achoba calling it a "bandaid" fix, the approach it's taking this winter is one he said they do every year.

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The difference this year, Achoba said, is the non-profit is getting BC Housing funds to add up to 35 extra beds into its existing facilities around the city. If there is a need, and if they have the staff, they may add more still.

"We're only doing this because no one else stepped up," he said.

Even with the extra beds squeezed into CMHA facilities, ten more soon added to the Stuart Wood school shelter, and potentially 44 at the Butler Rv property, Achoba said it's still not enough.

If the new Tranquille Road shelter opens, it would take almost two more of that size to make a significant dent in the need for shelter in the city, he said.

He also said BC Housing and the City were "invested from the beginning" in having emergency spaces planned, but there were challenges at another non-profit, so others "rallied together."

"We'll see how this winter goes and I hope that we can see more shelters being opened," he said.

On nights with weather warnings, the total shelter spaces will be bolstered to nearly 250 if the extra beds at CMHC facilities continue through the winter and Tranquille Road shelter is approved. The most recent homeless count tallied at least 312 people without shelter in April 2023 and shelters were 95% full at the time.

Unless new shelters are opened or BC Housing leases are extended, 75 year-round shelter beds at Stuart Wood and the former Greyhound station will close this spring.

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