A Vernon councillor is pushing for a pause on supportive housing projects in the city to allow time to assess whether the city's supportive housing strategy is working. 

At the Monday, Feb. 24 council meeting, Coun. Kari Gares put forward a notice of motion and requested it be added to the agenda for the March 10 meeting. The motion is for a temporary cap on supportive housing projects pending a comprehensive impact study. 

Supportive housing is housing that is subsidized and includes on-site supports for single adults, seniors and people with disabilities who are at risk of homelessness. It's an initiative aimed at getting people off the streets and allowing them to maintain stable housing, and is a key part of BC Housing's mandate. 

Vernon has multiple supportive housing buildings, including My Place on 35th Street, which opened in the summer of 2019. A second supportive housing building, The Crossings, was opened next to My Place in 2022. 

Another supportive housing building is currently being built at 2307 43rd Street, on the site of the old Howard House shelter. The four-storey building will house 51 self-contained units once completed. 

Speaking to The Morning Star, Gares said her motion does not mean she is against supportive housing; she thinks it's "vital for every community that we help everybody in our community, even those that are experiencing risk of homelessness and mental health and addiction issues."

"But the reason why I brought that motion forward is we've had several supportive housing projects that council has approved, I think really since 2019. Now that they're fully operational, I want to look at the impact."

Gares said she's been having discussions with residents that live in the area of My Place and The Crossings and has heard a common thread: people don't find the area to be safe. 

"Among individuals that are living within the area where supportive housing, shelter and social services are kind of congregating, there's a sense of fear and lack of security for their own well-being," Gares said. 

She pointed out that many people near this supportive housing hub that has developed in recent years are seniors who are on a fixed budget and can't easily move (the area is close to the Schubert Centre and surrounding seniors and 55-plus housing complexes). 

Concerns have also been raised by businesses in the area, Gares said.

"The onus is on us to look after everyone in our community, and not just simply one subset of that community."

Gares' proposal of a temporary pause on supportive housing projects is only for new builds, and wouldn't affect projects that are already underway. 

She's calling for an impact assessment to be done, which would provide the city with better insight, "and once we have that insight, then that will help us lead to maybe adjusting our policy or how we move forward."

Whether supportive housing projects are paused or not does not necessarily hinge on Gares' motion. She pointed out that BC Housing has its own mandate to provide supportive housing and "they can do as they please, they can come in and do whatever they want within local government ... they really don't need, say, the City of Vernon or any municipality's approval to do that."

Essentially, BC Housing could plow through any motion made by the City of Vernon if more supportive housing is its goal. 

But Gares said her motion is in part a message to the Crown corporation that the city needs a meaningful seat at the table in discussions on how to move forward.

"We need to do this collectively if it's going to be successful, because those individuals that are needing supportive housing need it to be successful," she said.

"Ultimately that is the message I'm trying to get across, you can't leave us on the sideline anymore. It's our community, we're the ones that have to deal with any unintended consequences that may arise. So if we're at the table having conversations, and really good conversations, we might be able to minimize the potential of unintended consequences."

Gares said there have been many safety concerns raised specifically in the neighbourhood of My Place and The Crossings. The idea behind putting these buildings in the same area is that they'll be close to services utilized by the population at risk of homelessness (The Upper Room Mission is only a block away from these buildings), and it follows a strategy of building supportive housing where homeless individuals already are. 

Gares questions this strategy, saying it may be better to "mix them around" as is done with affordable housing projects, so that the buildings become integrated in their neighbourhoods rather than creating one big supportive housing neighbourhood. 

That's something for the impact assessment Gares is calling to look into.