Penticton safety and security advisory committee to discuss official guidelines for where to put homeless shelters, supportive housing

Photo: City of Penticton

Proposed areas that would be exempt from having potential future homeless shelters or supportive housing units.

The City of Penticton is holding a special Safety and Security Advisory Committee meeting Monday, in order to discuss location selection guidelines for homeless shelters and supportive housing units.

On Monday morning, the committee will vote on whether to forward their draft siting guidelines to city council at its next meeting.

The committee has outlined the guidelines as follows:

• Must be a minimum of 150 metres away from K-12 private and public schools.
• Must be a minimum of 150 metres away from Marina Way Beach, Okanagan Beach, Skaha Beach, Gyro Park, Lakawanna Park, Marina Way Park, Okanagan Lake Park, Rose Garden, Skaha Lake Park, and SS Sicamous.
• The property must not front any of the following highways: Lakeshore Drive, Main Street (100-700 blocks), Martin Street (100-300 blocks), Riverside Drive, Skaha Lake Road, and Westminster Avenue.
• And it should consider, where possible, not to be near businesses that rely on foot traffic, and residences/homes for older adults/seniors, and should be near health/medical services.

These guidelines would further render the current Victory Church shelter on Winnipeg untenable, a location which is already contentious and the subject of a battle between the city and province to keep it open, and exclude a proposed 62-unit supportive housing complex at 3240 Skaha Lake Road, the lot for which has already been purchased by BC Housing.

The committee will vote Monday on finalizing the location selection guidelines and forward those to council for consideration and potential adoption.

Find the meeting's full agenda and information on how to watch it virtually at 10:30 a.m. Monday can be found here.