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Most of Penticton’s homeless are originally from the South Okanagan, says the regional Chief of Police.
Supt. Ted De Jager was before Penticton council Tuesday for his quarterly report, discussing a drop in property crime observed in the community for the first part of the year.
De Jager, who commands the entire South Okanagan—Similkameen RCMP, took questions from councillors on how police are combating crime and social issues in the downtown core.
Mayor Andrew Jakubeit asked him for his opinion on the 52-unit modular development proposed by BC Housing on Green Avenue adjacent to the Skaha Sunrise apartments, existing transitional housing. The public hearing on the project is being held later Tuesday night at city hall.
There was some suggestion by Couns. Max Picton and Campbell Watt earlier this month that the city is attracting the homeless from outside the region with easy-to-access social services.
“The majority of the people that we are dealing with, from a social perspective in this community, are from this community or from the South Okanagan, and they have been here for some time,” De Jager said, noting RCMP relies on the homeless count for its own data.
“I don’t think you will find a police chief across Canada who is not an advocate of housing first, but that housing has to be programmed properly,” he added.
He said lessons have been learned from the rocky first years of the Fairhaven transitional BC Housing project.
“I don’t know that we’ve received one call per month over the last several months, because of the programming that’s now there."
The majority of the homeless “don’t spend a lot of time in our cell block, because they are not committing a lot of crime,” he continued.
The same people may be creating other problems by violating bylaws or causing minor disturbances, but De Jager said that’s something RCMP officers work with city bylaw on rather than the criminal system.
Also of note, De Jager said the Penticton RCMP will be deploying bait cars in the community this summer.
