There’s still no indication of what could replace the Memorial Arena homeless shelter, or how long that shelter will need to stay open.

The City of Kamloops and BC Housing are working to replace that homeless shelter with another one somewhere else.

Councillor Kathy Sinclair says shelters are needed, but temporary supportive housing is a better situation for people facing homelessness. “Where we’re going to give people that security, and not just looking at those short-term shelter beds. Because let’s face it; if I was out there and didn’t have a home, I don’t think is the best place that I would want to be. Definitely not a long-term solution,” she says.

“I’m thinking about Spero House – which is on the Tranquille Market corridor – and that’s long term housing. It’s been very successfully integrated into the neighbourhood. I live in the neighbourhood, so I know there’s been no problems there.”

The Memorial Arena shelter expanded from 30 to 50 beds before the 40-bed shelter closed at the Kamloops Curling Club. It has been open since May of 2020, and was initially brought in to be a stopgap measure for housing homeless residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people needed to be more spread out and other shelters had to cut the number of beds they had.

Before the curling club shelter closed, there were already about 90-to-100 more homeless residents than shelter beds in Kamloops.

“We’re obviously short, and we need some solutions,” Sinclair says.

“BC Housing has some things coming forward. You’ve heard about the Fortune Motel, I don’t have any more information about that; that just went straight through BC Housing and council was not in the loop around that. Although I’m sure we’re going to hear some more things.”

The 40-unit Fortune Motel, at 654 Fortune Drive, was bought by BC Housing in April for $3.63 million, and the Crown corporation plans to turn it into supportive housing. It said it would be applying to the city in the fall to rezone the former motel, to allow for the new use.