Vernon Bylaw files increased in 2025, but not to record highs

Mar 11, 2026 | 3:02 PM

Vernon’s Bylaw files rose in 2025, but stayed below the highs seen a few years ago.

A year end summary said protective services investigated a total of 5,273 files in the latest reporting year. That was up from the 4,463 bylaw files in 2024, but still below the 5,354 files in 2021 and 5,727 in 2022.

Mayor Victor Cumming told Vernon Matters it was important to look at the figures on a multi-year comparison .

“2025’s [files] are less than we had in 2021, less than it was in 2022, so there was a dip in ’23 and ’24, and 2025 is still below 2021,” the mayor said.

“It oscillates year-by-year. The point is it’s in about that same magnitude as it was five years ago. I think that’s a good sign for us that it’s staying stable. The economic conditions we have are more challenging over the last 12 months or more, so this doesn’t surprise me that the number of files are up.”

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Of the files investigated in 2025, 2,974 were public calls for service, which was up 11.9 per cent annually, while 2,095 were generated by officers or city staff , which was up by 62 per cent from the previous year’s figures.

Cumming said seeing that large increase in self-generated files was “a good sign” as it showed officers were out in the community and proactively dealing with issues that needed to be addressed. He also credited that rising figure in part to Bylaw doing joint patrols with the RCMP in the fall and winter months.

Of the files, 763 were from within the Business Improvement Area (BIA), or the downtown core, while 2,214 were from issues occurring in parks or other public places.

Downtown bylaw calls were down 14.7 per cent annually in 2025, though parks and public places files were up 38.6 per cent.

Also, files related to the unhoused population rose 53 per cent annually with 2,133 such incidents investigated in 2025. That figure also represented 41 per cent of all calls across the year.

Cumming said addressing these types of files require long term investments.

“Housing is a provincial function, not a municipal function, so we’ve been working very directly with the province and B.C. Housing and we have been adding supportive housing so that those who are at the bottom of the income bracket are finding more and more locations that enable them to make a different choice,” the mayor told Vernon Matters.

“We don’t have much success in those who are choosing not to live within what’s required to live in supportive housing, but what we’re doing is adding more and more capacity.”

The report also stated that nearly 830 files related to the unhoused were generated from within Polson Park in 2025, up 217 per cent annually. Darren Lees, Vernon’s Manager Protective Services who presented the report to city council Monday, said the park is frequently patrolled by the bylaw team that deals with unhoused related issues and generated the majority of those files, and adding that the remaining file increase could be related to the reopening of the park following the Vernon Creek Naturalization project.

Lees said addressing issues related to homelessness on a broader scale requires actions from all levels of government, but in the meantime the bylaw teams would continue to patrol the downtown core and the parks and do what they can to address the issues. He also said he expected calls for service to Polson Park would increase with more users having access in the coming spring and summer.

Council accepted the report for information at the regular meeting March 9.

by Liam Verster

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