A neighbourhood meeting is being organized in the hopes of clearing up some confusion for Maple Pool Campsite residents who must find a new place to live by August.
During the most recent meeting of community agencies like the Comox Valley Ad Hoc Emergency Resources Organization (AHERO) Committee and the Wachiay Friendship Centre, representatives from the City of Courtenay and the provincial government debated.
They are trying to conceive a plan to help residents of Maple Pool, situated between Headquarters Road and the Tsolum River. The group decided that AHERO will organize a neighbourhood meeting for the residents, explained Anne Davis, chair of AHERO, noting they hope representatives from the city will attend as well.
“The idea is the Maple Pool residents are getting mixed messages from various sources, and the idea is they need to get clear information of what’s going on and how it impacts them and the timelines,” she said.
The agencies have been meeting since November, when the city gave the owners of Maple Pool until the end of January to comply with Courtenay’s zoning bylaws by removing permanent residences on the property. Courtenay council has extended the deadline to July 31.
From Coun. Doug Hillian’s understanding, the information meeting would be designed more like a talking circle.
“The concern is there’s some concern among the residents and probably among people in the community about the different information that is out there, and it would be helpful to have an information meeting to reduce anxiety around some of the myths that are out there,” he said.
Through this process, it has become very clear that there are people living at Maple Pool who would be eligible for social housing due to disability or age, but the social housing in the Valley has substantial waiting lists, explained Hillian, who chairs the meetings.
“We’ve become acutely aware of how critical the housing situation is in the community and the fact there simply is not alternate housing available for people living in vulnerable situations,” he said.
Hillian feels the meetings have been helpful.
“The information sharing taking place has been very helpful for both city staff and the agencies involved,” he said. “It’s always better when people are communicating around a difficult situation.
“The other thing that has been helpful is it has started a process whereby city staff and council sit on a regular basis with agencies working on providing housing. It’s a very difficult issue to find any resolution to, but if we’re talking to each other and working collaboratively, we have a much better chance of making progress than otherwise.”
The local agencies that are involved in these meetings are very concerned for the people living at Maple Pool, noted Davis.
“The agencies are not going to be able to find housing for all of the people who are there,” she said. “It’s just not there. We’re very, very concerned about what’s going to happen to people once the ultimate eviction date does come up.”
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