By Chris Beach

Northern View

Northern View: Millenium Park Camp

Sep 13, 2023 | 1:25 PM

The complex and difficult decision by the Mayor and Council to shut down the homeless camp at Millenium Park garnered some criticism from those who opposed the move, but it seems clear the majority of residents in the city supported the Council’s decision.

It’s important to remember that our city council represents everyone in Prince George, not just those living in the camp but all who live and work in the downtown area, including small business owners who face daunting challenges every day, and all of us who shop and access services, amenities, and recreation downtown.

In the end, it was a decision that was reinforced by the Prince George Fire Chief who deemed the camp unsafe and ordered its removal last week.

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This left the homeless at Millenium Park with a choice to move to a temporary shelter, into BC housing, or to the urban encampment at Moccasin Flats, which doesn’t have running water or electricity, and so not surprisingly many did not want to relocate there.

But the problem with choosing subsidized BC housing is that while few seem to know for sure how many spaces are actually available, it appears that currently there just aren’t enough to accommodate everyone in need.

This is the BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlons’s responsibility, not the city’s, and yet Prince George has been offering to partner with the ministry to get more public housing built for a very long time.

Yet Minister Kahlon chose to play politics with a very difficult situation for the city and the homeless, and publicly threw the Mayor and Council under the bus.

What happened to the $5.7 billion-dollar surplus the newly anointed Premier Eby pulled out of the hat last year? He promised to invest a lot of that money in housing…

The lion’s share, you guessed it, went to Victoria, Vancouver, and the Lower Mainland.

We might only have 80,000 people living in Prince George, but you can easily make the argument that as a key transportation, medical, education, industrial and commercial hub for more than half the province, we play a more significant role than many larger cities down south, all huddled together, that get more provincial funding.

So Premier Eby and Minister Kahlon should stop playing politics and give Prince George it’s fair share of those housing dollars because our local homeless population are facing another winter – not a Vancouver or Victoria winter, but a Prince George winter – and they desperately need housing as soon as possible.

I’m Chris Beach and this is the Northern View.

Editors note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of Pattison Media.