Submitted by City of Cranbrook

It’s been just over a year since the City of Cranbrook, in collaboration with the Regional District of East Kootenay (RDEK), hired a Social Development Coordinator as a vital communication bridge between local government, service providers, and the community.

This foray into the soft services of social issues and community wellbeing was a response to community requests and the January 2022, What We Heard Report, clearly articulating that citizens resoundingly identified social challenges and housing affordability as highest priorities to resolve.

Many initiatives have been established to address those concerns, and while it may not always appear as progress is being made, from a bird’s eye view, change in the right direction is happening.

One topic that is brought up regularly at every meeting, event, or gathering is the need for greater transparency through more consistent communication from the city.

Communication that lets citizens know what is really happening. In response, “Let’s Get Talking” will be a monthly communication, about the realities and rumors related to the current social landscape.

One persistent rumor has been “homeless people are being bussed into Cranbrook.” This is possibly the most speculated about narrative heard over the past few years, and Cranbrook is not the only community battling this urban myth.

It can be unequivocally stated there have not been busses of homeless people being sent to Cranbrook.

However, when the Travelodge was taken over by BC Housing to provide shelter for unhoused people required to isolate during the pandemic, a few people from outside the community accessed this shelter, but not busloads.

Across the province, there are also incidents where people have been discharged from hospital or correctional facilities and dropped off at a shelter site in their last known community.

It is also possible that some folks who come to Cranbrook to access local social services do not always have the means to return to their home community. Because of the housing situation in Cranbrook, some of those individuals end up homeless.

So yes, Cranbrook currently has some folks living rough who are not “from” Cranbrook. But if you spend a few minutes talking to them, you quickly learn that most have called Cranbrook home for many years.

It is not the rumoured ‘busloads of homeless people being sent to Cranbrook’ that has caused the increase in the number of visibly unhoused people. Rather it is a complex intersection of factors including system failures, like individuals being released from correctional systems without support or a plan in place or waitlists; structural factors, such as marginalization and discrimination or housing market financialization; and individual life circumstances.

To reduce homelessness, we need to address the larger issues and work together as a community to create housing opportunities that bring people off the streets and into stable housing with appropriate supports and resources.

City of Cranbrook file photo

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