Councillor Wooldridge urges you to advocate for change
We have a health crisis in the Okanagan Valley. The Journey Home program in Kelowna is moving rapidly to build supportive care facilities to house the homeless, but addictions and mental health treatment programs are sadly behind.
Councillor Loyal Wooldridge says, "The crime and the petty theft that we're seeing is a secondary symptom of addiction. If we don't start treating that as a health issue we're going to continue seeing those problems into the future."
Wooldridge says these services are the responsibility of the provincial health care system and not the municipality. The cost of treating addiction and mental health issues among the homeless population is in the millions of dollars annually.
Wooldridge took to his Facebook page today urging his followers to begin advocating for action by contacting Provincial MLA's and Federal MP's to alert them to what he calls a crisis.
"We need to advocate relentlessly for treatment on demand so that when people are ready, we can get them in right away. The likelihood of people sleeping rough on the streets deciding to get clean and then waiting a month a half to get treatment at best, is again, not going to be a realistic way to see people recover."
Wooldridge says the city can only do so much. It doesn't tax its residents for the development of social programs. That's up to the Province of BC.
