While Salmon Arm can offer shelter to homeless people in the winter months, in the summer, options aren’t so straightforward.
Travelling to Vernon or Kamloops to the shelters there is one possibility, while some people choose to find a spot under the stars. It’s this option that concerns residents such as Sandra Seale, who enjoys Little Mountain Park regularly. She says she noticed someone had been camping in a secluded area of the park, so she requested that city staff ask him to move, mainly because of the fire hazard.
“We can’t have open fires burning in our park, and the littering is also unacceptable.”
City staff cleaned up part of the mess, said Seale, and then she and a few residents went in last weekend to pick up what was left.
“Empty tin cans thrown around the nearby woods mainly. Also old newspapers, a butcher knife, some tent poles. This person was not a ‘leave only footprints’ kind of guy.”
City public works manager John Rosenberg said a fire pit was in the area but it was unused. He said young people build makeshift shelters in the park, but camping is more unusual. However, it does happen sometimes, he says, in Coyote Park, in an area just west of Peter Jannink Park and, at Little Mountain.
“I don’t believe there’s any way to prevent it from happening,” he said. “If we’re made aware of it, we certainly investigate.”