OSOYOOS TIMES-November 11, 2009
Getting so-called supportive housing efforts off the ground at Osoyoos’s Desert Valley Care facility has certainly been a fiasco.
In the beginning, the province said the 10-unit facility— which has not been in use since November of 2008 and was purchased by the provincial government last January— would be housing people who are homeless or struggling with mental health issues by March of this year.
March came and went and it’s been nearly 11 months since the province announced its somewhat naïve goal of having the facility running by the spring.
Now the coldest part of the year is upon us and a building that could shelter local homeless people in extreme cold temperatures this winter will likely remain empty until spring of 2010 unless BC Housing gets its act together.
What’s worse is the facility was being used to shelter one woman and her son who had nowhere else to go.
Ironically, they were kicked out in preparation for the facility to officially open to people who have nowhere else to go.
That opening never took place.
The province wants a local community or non-profit group to run the facility.
It’s hard to see the logic, however, in the province’s plan to simply dump the administration of the centre onto a charitable or non-profit organization and then expect it to cover operation costs such as utility fees.
Did someone in the provincial government really think it was a good idea to put the call out to groups that have little money and make little or no money to start shelling out the cash to keep the lights and heat on at Desert Valley Care?
If the province had planned this all out properly and worked to have the facility open in the spring, whatever organization took on operational responsibilities for the centre could have at least made some money over the summer by using a portion of the centre’s units for low-cost housing for Osoyoos’s short-term work force.
But, it’s November, and who’s going to pay to stay there now?
Hopefully, BC Housing does listen carefully to those organizations that showed some interest earlier this fall in running the facility and create the right conditions for such an organization to take over the show for next summer.
Because having this great resource within our community sit dark and empty right now certainly casts a shadow over the work Osoyoos is doing to fix its affordable housing issues.
