The City of Duncan, Island Health, and a number of community partners have a meeting with BC Housing regarding the emergency homelessness response plan tomorrow.
Last week, Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples and partners from the Cowichan Housing Association and other groups submitted a 30-day emergency response plan around homelessness to BC Housing to plot a future course.
Staples said people throughout the Cowichan Valley have been tremendously generous as this project gets off the ground.
Staples said more than 30 groups are part of this project and a number of parties are trying to figure out which services already exist, and which ones need to be created.
“In terms of accommodation, food services, making sure that everyone has what they need,” said Staples.
She added, “A lot of different services, organizations, and local governments are coming together, looking at ‘what do we already have in terms of services that we’re not able to provide in one way because of being shut down right now.”
This plan has a lot of moving parts, but after this meeting, it will become clearer what the way forward looks like from both a funding and housing perspective.
Staples said this is a huge project that involves at least 30 different groups.
“There are so many pieces to this and there’s going to be a series of teams coordinating each aspect of this; everything from outreach, to support, to cleaning, to food services, to other kinds of care that are involved in this,” said Staples.
The plan will become much clearer after tomorrow’s meeting, but the emergency homelessness response plan has three phases.
A 30-day response plan, one at 90 days, and a post-COVID19 response.
Staples said this project will likely cost $3,000 dollars, per person, per month and she expects about 200 participants.
