The province says it won’t offer up additional money to the Greater Victoria School District for security and clean-up after a temporary homeless shelter opened up near a middle school.
The district’s superintendent argued B.C. and the City of Victoria must pay about $44,000 for extra janitors and crossing guards at Central Middle School after the opening of My Place Transition Home on Yates Street.
Supt. Piet Langstraat said parents and staff are worried for students’ safety as the first of 40 homeless people moved in to the shelter Tuesday.
He said the district didn’t budget for expenses like cleaning up used syringes, and it could ultimately be students who pay the price if the city and the province don’t cough up extra money.
“If we can’t secure funding from outside sources, there are necessary supports that will need to be put in place at the school,” said Langstraat. “We’ll have no other alternative but to take them from programming and services that we currently provide to students in other areas.”
But the Ministry of Housing told CTV News any additional money should come from the district itself.
“If there are any additional costs, they should be covered from the contingency funds that school districts like Victoria set aside as part of their annual budgeting,” it said in a statement. “As of June 20, 2015, the Victoria school district had an operating surplus of close to $22-million.”
The shelter has received $400,000 in funding from BC Housing, while the United Way and the City of Victoria have chipped in $25,000 and $45,000, respectively, for upgrades to the site.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said the city shares some of the concerns of school staff and parents, but that any request for additional funding must be between the district and the province.
“In this instance the city’s only role is we happen to be the ones with a vacant building in that location,” she said. “If it were a church or a vacant school property, it would be another situation.”
Despite the opposition from some district staff and parents, Our Place Society spokesman Grant McKenzie said he believes the shelter will strengthen the community around Central Middle School.
“We believe the neighbourhood will actually be safer with the shelter here, because we’ve got security here, we’ve got outreach workers here and we have a community being built that wants to be a good neighbour,” he said. “[It] wants to look after not just this building, but the whole neighbourhood.”
The shelter will be operated by Our Place and remain open for four months, by which point it is hoped residents will be transitioned to permanent housing.
On Tuesday Our Place said it accepted six of the new tenants from the Victoria Courthouse encampment, and will gradually phase arrivals in to ensure a smooth transition.
School district staff met Monday night to discuss their frustration with what they've said is a lack of proper consultation over the location of the homeless shelter.
With files from The Canadian Press
