EDITORIAL – Keeping shelters away from the riverfront is good policy

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

SHOULDN’T HOMELESS folks have the same right to a riverfront view as the rest of us?

That’s the question that’s come up in the wake of a BC Housing plan to build a shelter or general population transitional housing facility on River Street near the yacht club property.

Kamloops City council has informed Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon it doesn’t like the idea, and Kahlon seems OK with it.

Coun. Mike O’Reilly wants to take it a step further. He’ll bring forward a notice of motion at the next regular council meeting in April to ban social housing from the city’s riverfront, period.

His motion states that shelters and transitional housing on riverfront are not the “highest and best use” of land. He’s right.

To some, keeping social housing away from riverfront seems discriminatory. Why, they ask, should the homeless be kept away from life on the river just because wealthier people want to keep it for themselves?

That’s not a fair assessment of the situation. The Kamloops riverfront is prime property for community enjoyment. While some of it is, indeed, used for housing, much effort and planning has gone into keeping it as pristine as possible for the public, especially in the city centre.

Particular attention has been paid to the zone between Pioneer and Riverside Parks, but the area between the Yellowhead Bridge and Pioneer is also envisioned as part of the riverfront public area. It has very little housing on it.

Though not for housing, the homeless population already has ample access to the riverfront in the downtown area. That’s where they pitch their tents and tarps and park their shopping carts and leave their garbage and generally make a mess of the place. And somebody burned down the Red Bridge.

That sounds harsh but it’s true. Now imagine a shelter in the same neighbourhood as ball diamonds, tennis courts, a dog park and a lot of businesses, the latter focused on the city side toward the Yellowhead Bridge. Experience has amply shown the negative impact that shelters can have on other uses near to them.

BC Housing looks for property wherever it can be found, with little regard, it seems, for the impacts on immediate neighbourhoods. And with little consultation.

City council has been co-operative with the NDP’s dictatorial housing mandates, sometimes a little too co-operative, perhaps. On the social housing front, it is striving to provide more spaces and beds for those in need. (The Yacht Club itself has been the location of a temporary winter shelter.)

Some forms of housing are acceptable on the river, in the right places, but O’Reilly’s thinking is right. Preserve the riverfront for better and higher uses.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.