Vernon business owners cry for help amid homeless crisis

There’s no denying it, Vernon, like many cities in B.C., is dealing with a homelessness crisis and it’s affecting local businesses.

Business owner Vicki Eide said she feels like she’s caught in a drug apocalypse and that businesses have become collateral damage.

Eidi addressed city council Monday. She said the business community has been forgotten in this crisis.

“We want Mr. Mayor and council to be a team and recognize what has happened and what is happening — it’s not going away. And we want some protection.”

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Curtis Graves owns a downtown barber shop. He said some of the homeless have made it impossible to conduct business.

“People don’t want to bring their families to the front of my shop because I have this little alcove across from my shop and there’s forever people peeing in there, pooping in there, dropping their garbage in there, shooting needles in there.”

Graves said he’s called RCMP and bylaw several times but is not happy with the results.

Vernon’s top cop said the RCMP have increased their presence downtown and they’re stepping up their game in dealing with the homelessness issue.

“Our instructions to our police officers more recently is to take a zero-tolerance approach to criminal activity that may be going on both in the downtown core and in linear park,” Supt. Jim McNamara said.

Stephanie Pelletier is one of the estimated 150 homeless people in Vernon. She denies the homeless are a threat to businesses..

“We are not a threat to them. We just want people to notice that we have no place to go and that we need affordable housing,” she said.

But there is reason for hope. Council heard Monday that a task force is being organized to see if it can come up with a solution to the city’s growing homelessness problem.