By Tiffany Goodwein

‘It’s pretty run down’: Homeless shelters asked to clean up

Jun 11, 2019 | 5:03 PM

Vernon city council is urging the homeless shelters to tidy up their appearance.

Council voted to write a letter to the shelters on Monday asking them to clean up their properties, and to enforce their no loitering policy.

“I was talking to some of the residents and business owners in the downtown core and they indicated that one of their issues is the general perception of the area, and they specifically mentioned the shelters,” Coun. Scott Anderson who put forward the motion, said.

Coun. Kelly Fehr said the Gateway shelter staff are working to clean the building after hearing concerns from the most recent town hall meeting that addressed homelessness in the city.

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“I do happen to know the manager at that site and after the town hall, he had instructed the maintenance department to pressure wash the building and clean up the property a bit,” he said.

Fehr argued enforcing a no loitering policy on a shelter property would be difficult.

“The challenge around that is you can only prevent loitering on public sidewalks,” he said.

Coun. Akbal Mund said making specific cleaning requests could be a slippery slope.

“I can see where Coun. Anderson is going with this, but when you start asking one entity to clean up their building, I mean there’s a lot of buildings in the downtown core that I would say need a little bit of work too. I mean, are we picking and choosing one entity over the rest of them?”

“You have to be very careful if you move in this direction, very careful,” Mund said.

Anderson disagreed with Mund’s position and said many businesses in the downtown core don’t have as much of a loitering problem as the shelters do.

“It’s not simply picking and choosing; it’s simply picking a sore spot and asking them to clean up,” he said.

Fehr and Mund ultimately voted against the motion.

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Tiffany.Goodwein@jpbg.ca

On Twitter : misstiff_94

by Tiffany Goodwein

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