Some neighbourhood residents supportive of Stephen Village, say a police presence would help

Photo: Contributed

Stephen Village has become a polarizing development.

Painting all the residents at the highly controversial Stephen Village with the same brush isn’t just unfair, it reflects poorly on the community as a whole, a neighbourhood resident says.

“They are good neighbours,” Lora Atkinson, who lives in a condo adjacent to the Kelowna supportive housing facility said.

"They're just in their houses, watching TV, eating their food and having a drink at night or smoking a doobie, like we all do. They’re not the garbage makers. They’re not the ones pooping on the street.”

They’re also not the sex trade workers, or drug dealers, who have also shown up on the street since the facility opened, she said.

Atkinson and several other residents of her building have a bit of a neighbourhood watch group going on.

Through their network, they post pictures of ne’er-do-wells and they all know who's behind attracting some of the less than ideal behaviour in the area.

“I even confronted one a couple of weeks ago,” she said.

"He was standing in front of Stephen Village, which I walk my dog by four times a day, and I said 'will you stop selling drugs in my neighbourhood?’”

He said he wasn’t and she informed him that he’s on every video and photo they have, doing just that.

She wonders, however, if the neighbourhood of retirees knows what's going on, why those in charge are seemingly so unaware that they’re not cutting the behaviour short.

Until police intervene, she said, the issue won’t end. An email to police asking about the goings on at the facility went unanswered.

Regardless, Atkinson said that simply instituting dry-facility rules, while bemoaning the facility's existence is of no help to anyone.

The people Stephen’s Village houses are where they should be, she said. Close to the services they need to access, in a community they can call home.

This is a less common view in the neighbourhood.

Tyler Zeeman is one of the neighbours behind the Change Stephen Village community group.

"We were going through a nightmare with the supportive housing unit near us and we've been fighting since June or July to change it to a dry facility," Zeeman said in a recent interview..

Among other things, Zeeman said the neighbourhood has seen fights, assaults, stabbings, prostitution, theft, and, in the last couple of days, a massive dump of drug detritus in a community park. All of it, he said, due to the facility.

"Before that it was a great community. I have been here four years. When we moved in the supportive housing was there, but staff would tell (troublemakers) to leave, then all of a sudden that stopped and it’s gotten worse and worse," he said.

They are asking the City of Kelowna Mayor and Council to petition Interior Health and BC Housing on behalf of this community.

The goal is to change the operational model of Stephen Village from a wet to a dry facility, due to a belief that offering assisted housing to individuals who are making a commitment to ongoing recovery as part of their residency will have a positive impact on the safety of our community.