WE HAVE A NEW
BC WILDLIFE PARK Located 15 minutes east of Kamloops (exit 390 & 391 on the Trans Canada Highway) 250.573.3242 or visit www.bcwildlife.org
BABY BOY!
Send your name suggestions to: contest@bcwildlife.org and you may WIN A PRIZE!
KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK TUESDAY
kamloopsthisweek.com kamloopsthisweek kamthisweek
NAME THE
BABY COUGAR CONTEST
30 CENTS AT NEWSSTANDS
|
SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 | Volume 30 No. 112
KAMLOOPS BYELECTION 2017 Saturday, Sept. 30
#Kampaign17 KTW concludes a three-part series with byelection candidates addressing three areas of concern: crime and policing, taxation and housing. Each issue begins with a story outlining the topic, followed by candidates’ responses, which are spread out in three editions each week. We conclude this week with the final issue — housing. The issues of crime and policing and taxation ran in previous weeks. Those stories and candidates’ responses to them — along with all byelection news — can be found online at kamloopsthisweek.com under the Kamloops Byelection tab. Voters go to the polls on Saturday, Sept. 30, to elect a mayor and two councillors.
Housing ideas from Alberta ANDREA KLASSEN
STAFF REPORTER
andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
THE ART OF THE BEANBAG TOSS
ALLEN DOUGLAS/KTW
Three-year-old Tucker Wilson shows dad Mark his incredible aim at the beanbag toss station at the weekend’s annual Children’s Arts Festival in Riverside Park. More photos are online at kamloopsthisweek.com, under the Community tab.
TODAY’S WEATHER Sun and clouds High 17 C Low 6 C
A few years ago, a city of about 61,000 people in the most southeastern corner of Alberta began making headlines across the globe. “Homeless find a champion in Canada’s Medicine Hat,” ran the headline in the New York Times as recently as February. Two years earlier, the city declared it had put an end to homelessness. The Medicine Hat Community Housing Society, an organization operating arm’s-length from city hall and charged with overseeing all affordable housing in the city, explains it thusly: “No one in our community will have to live in an
emergency shelter or sleep rough for more than 10 days before they have access to stable housing and the supports needed to maintain it.” The organization reports it has housed 1,036 people since 2009, using a housing-first model: rather than requiring individuals to be drug- or alcohol-free, or have other issues managed before they are housed, the housing first model works to provide a steady place to stay, followed by services to deal with addictions, mental-health and other issues once the housing need has been addressed. Medicine Hat Mayor Ted Clugston has had Kamloops on the phone often in recent weeks. A number of mayoral candi-
dates in the Sept. 30 Kamloops byelection have called to pick his brain about affordable housing, he told KTW. Medicine Hat has been namechecked by council candidates, letter writers and others searching for a solution to Kamloops’ own issues with affordability and homelessness. It’s not the first time this has happened. “Everybody is looking for a magic bullet from me. They want me to move there and solve the problem and I don’t have a magic bullet, but what I do say to them is it can be done,” said Clugston, who is in the midst of his own election campaign.
GUILTY VERDICT IN KELOWNA
See CAN KAMLOOPS, A6
STARTING IT UP!
Conviction in Peter Beckett’s second trial
Startup Canada Awards handed out in Kamloops
A4
A21
VOTE Leslie LAX
For Kamloops City Council
Effective • Balanced • Experienced
Lax.for.Council
@LeslieLax
778.538.1234
Lax.for.Council@gmail.com
AuthorizedbyRandySunderman,FinancialAgent.rsunman@telus.net