Photo: Contributed

Kamloops Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson says he believes if the provincial government listens to a new ask from B.C.'s urban cities, it could change Kamloops “in the most positive light.”

Last week, the BC Urban Mayors' Caucus, which includes mayors from the province’s 16 largest cities, sent a letter to Premier David Eby asking him to include a series of directives in his mandate letters to ministries.

The group said they wanted the province to take action on four key areas — mental health and substance abuse treatment, community safety, affordable housing and transit and transportation.

The BC Urban Mayors' Caucus list included a total of 13 recommendations aimed at tackling some of the biggest challenges faced by local governments.

“There’s nothing on here I don’t like,” Hamer-Jackson, a member of the caucus, said of the letter’s recommendations.

The letter suggests that the province engage with cities and assess their needs for substance use treatment and supports in order to improve the involvement of local governments in creating mental health supports in their communities.

Another recommendation is to establish a collaborative cabinet roundtable consisting of multiple ministries to address poverty, encampments, community wellbeing, street disorder, food security and the mental health and addictions crisis.

Other directives include establishing minimum care and operational standards for sheltering and supportive housing facilities including their impact on neighbours, establishing shelter unit minimums, exploring provincially-funded investment in a range of recovery programs, and immediately expanding access to detox and sobering beds across B.C.

The letter also suggests creating a provincial urban downtown safety improvement plan and a municipal infrastructure funding program, funding bail reform to process repeat, violent offenders faster, and exploring cannabis revenue-sharing programs.

Asked which recommendations should be addressed first and would be best for Kamloops, Hamer-Jackson said he wanted to see headway on directives concerning the opioid crisis.

“We keep talking about saving lives, but we keep having record overdose deaths, and we keep opening these buildings that have two or three employees in there looking after 40 or 50 people,” Hamer-Jackson said.

Audit could set minimums

Mayor Hamer-Jackson said he feels establishing minimums for shelter units and shelter operation standards will lead to social agencies hiring more staff, and the residents of shelters, in turn, receiving more care.

“It just seems so much like common sense,” Hamer-Jackson said.

“We keep building these buildings and they're basically warehousing people, and I just think it's terrible.”

He said he feels a forensic audit of shelters would help establish what those minimums should be.

“I just think we really need a forensic audit and to help our social agencies — not to hinder them — to help them,” Hamer-Jackson said.

Hamer-Jackson said all 16 mayors were involved in drafting the directives list, including himself.

“Our social agencies need more help, and I believe these initiatives would be very helpful, because we just keep doing the same thing over and over,” he said.

In a news release, Victoria mayor and caucus co-chair Marianne Alto said the Mayors’ Caucus put a lot of thought into its recommendations, and they hope Eby will listen to their advice.

“We want to work collaboratively with the premier, and acting on these recommendations would be a positive first step,” Alto said in the release.

Below is a list of all 13 directives from the BC Urban Mayors Caucus:

• Direct the Minister of Health to engage directly with local governments to assess the need for substance use treatment and supports in each community, to improve local-government involvement in the creation of local-specific mental health supports.
• Direct the Minister of Health to immediately expand access to detox beds, sobering beds, and stabilizing beds in communities across BC.
• Direct the Minister of Health to explore options for provincially funded recovery communities, and investment in a comprehensive range of recovery programs.
• Direct the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in collaboration with his colleagues, to establish shelter unit minimums for each community in B.C.
• Direct the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to establish minimum care and operational standards for sheltering and supportive housing facilities, including their impact on neighbourhoods and neighbours.
• Direct the Minister of Housing to reform BC Housing, including providing BC Housing with a new mandate that directly addresses the need for BC Housing to work more urgently with municipalities and establishes BC Housing as the agency responsible for sheltering and supportive housing.
• Direct the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General and the Minister of State for Community Safety to create funding and support for local governments that are creating or implementing community safety and wellbeing plans.
• Direct the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General and the Minister of State for Community Safety to create a provincial urban downtown safety improvement plan.
• Direct the Attorney General to act on bail reform, and immediately increase funding for provincial court services, to increase the speed and efficiency in which violent and repeat offenders can be processed through the court system.
• Direct the Minister of Infrastructure to work with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs, the Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities, and yourself, to build a municipal infrastructure funding program.
• Direct the Ministers of Health, Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Housing and Municipal Affairs, and Solicitor General to work collaboratively to address poverty, encampments, community wellbeing, food security, the mental health and addictions crisis, and street disorder by establishing a cabinet roundtable, working group, or committee to address these challenges collectively.
• Direct the Minister of Health to expand the PACT/CLCR programs and advance civilian-led mental health response programs throughout BC.
• Direct the Minister of Finance to explore cannabis-revenue-sharing programs with local governments.

The BC Urban Mayors’ Caucus is a non-partisan group of mayors from 16 of B.C.’s largest cities representing more than 55 per cent of the province’s total population: Abbotsford, Burnaby, Chilliwack, Coquitlam, Delta, Kamloops, Kelowna, Maple Ridge, Nanaimo, New Westminster, Prince George, Richmond, Saanich, Surrey, Vancouver and Victoria.

The group formed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and then reconvened following the 2022 municipal elections to act as a collective voice on critical issues facing their communities and urban British Columbia.

— with files from the New Westminster Record