The MLA for the Shuswap is calling for immediate action as people are suffering through extreme cold, outdoors in Salmon Arm.

After the local Salvation Army bailed on running shelters this year, and Canadian Mental Health offered to step into its shoes some 7 months ago, BC Liberal Greg Kyllo says BC Housing still hasn’t signed a deal to open a shelter.

He says this has forced as many as 30 people in Salmon arm to live in tents outside.

“I was on a particular piece of property, a man has a generator running inside the tent with just a hole cut in the side of the tent, hopefully putting exhaust fumes outside the tent but certainly there are concerns for carbon monoxide positioning. We have seen significant fires in some of these homeless encampments over the last number of years, and it is a very sad situation.”

Kyllo says he met with former BC Housing minister Murray Rankin in November to offer up some ideas.

“I did meet with him (Rankin) on November 24, and he agreed it was an emergency, all hands on deck, all resources employed to try and find solutions so that we didn’t see the vulnerable folks bearing -26 degree temperatures,” he said. “Yet, here we are on the 20th of December, and still no solution is available for those folks.”

One of the ideas Kyllo put forward to Rankin included units that operate in work camps.

“I reached out to one particular company, Summit Camps, and provided the name and phone and contact information they said they have about 5,300 beds sitting on the ground right now in western Canada. A ton of units up in Vanderhoof, they said they could mobilize units within a couple of days so they could be operational within a week.”

However, Kyllo says BC Housing never made contact.

“We have a new Premier who identifies himself being the man of action, here we have a crown corporation, BC Housing, that has known for seven months that the operator was not going to/willing to continue to operate for this current season, and yet, they fail to act,” expressed Kyllo. “I presented viable solutions that BC Housing has entertained in other communities around the province; why they continue to fail to even make a call to make inquiries to move forward with an opportunity to get these folks out of the cold is beyond me.”