Housing crisis

In light of the hundreds of people who are now homeless due to fire evacuations or the loss of their homes, I do believe the housing crisis in the Okanagan should be addressed. 

Not only in recent months has this been a mass problem amongst lower income or middle class working families and people with pets here in the Okanagan, but now with many more people displaced this crisis had become in simplest terms a state of emergency. Shelters around the interior are at capacity housing people who otherwise would be on the streets and for what? Because there is nothing large enough available to rent or if there is the prices are so high they would have to chose a roof or power and gas and food or maybe we should talk about the elephant in the room and also take into consideration the fact many people although illegal turn people away for having children!  

Most of the shelters being utilized are designed for people who are in dire crisis, like people fleeing abuse. Thankfully they are helping others have a place to call home for a few days or weeks instead of staying in a tent, but doesn't this only add a bigger problem? People who need to use these services because of abusive situations may be turned away because of the capacity of the shelter. To have hard working families living in shelters and tents working full time jobs or with the ability to pay at least $800 plus for a home to be in is the most insane thing to imagine. Why are these families suffering? And what is being done to remedy this horrific situation? 

People here are often concerned with the aesthetics of these city/town communities. Well when tourists start noticing that the citizens of these places are sleeping in tents with young children and struggling to get by what do you think that does to the integrity of these places? I will tell you, as it maybe a problem some can sweep under the rug now or excuse with some story of "well they don't work hard enough" or whatever other story people dream up to make it easier for them to sleep at night. 

This is getting worse and if this letter doesn't open the eyes of people with the ability to change this, then maybe some of the stories being shared on social media will. Too often we see ads pleading for leads on houses for rent for families of all types. Moms and dads begging for someone to help them so they don't have to explain to their children that the warm bed they once knew is now the scratchy surface of a hard tent bottom. The safety of a locked door is no more and the only thing now keeping them safe is mesh and a zipper. These are the people who work without a break to make it by in their community. The people who have paid their rent on time every month and yet still have been thrown to the wolves, without a leg to stand on. 

This isn't a ‘their crisis’, it is an ‘our crisis’ and this lack of attention on this matter will no longer stand.

Thanks for sharing my opinion on this matter. I hope instead of causing anger it causes change. 

Chantel Leitner