Powell River will put money toward cleaning up homeless encampments throughout the city.
City council agreed July 2 to put $30,000 this year towards the cleanup of encampments on city land.
The money is coming from the city’s financial stabilization reserve fund.
It also voted to look ahead to next year’s budget about FireSmarting high-risk parks to improve site lines and discourage camping.
The city will also look at adding to bylaw enforcement, parks resources and more cash for encampment cleanup though no numbers have been worked out.
There was some disagreement among councillors whether putting money toward the problem now would weaken the city’s attempts to lobby for funding at the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in September.
Councillor Jim Palm wanted to delay but couldn’t get a seconder on council.
“You’re setting a precedent for the city to be paying and I’d like to (ask) the provincial government for funding because after seeing what I saw walking through these sites, it’s going to cost a lot more money than $30,000 and I’m really concerned about the costs that are involved here,” Palm said.
A staff report says the most recent encampment cleanup was $11,000, which included city staff wages, police, a contractor vehicle, equipment and tipping fees.
But Councillor Rob Southcott says putting money behind an issue carries more weight.
“We can go the province…and say ‘Well, we’re doing this and we need support.’ That carries an awful lot more weight than just asking for support for something we intend to do, so the initiative that we can take is respected,” Southcott explained.
Council previously defeated at the committee level the idea of concentrating encampments to specific parks after considerable public opposition.
