THE HEAT IS ON THE HOMELESS

Mayor Walter Gray applaudes effort by police to clean up crime on downtown
streets "the old fashioned way."

The clean-up of Kelowna's downtown has begun: Thursday Leon Avenue was
largely free of loiterers for the first time in months, the business
community appears happy and the RCMP have made nearly a dozen arrests.

But the question now is where will the criminal homeless population go if
not downtown?

Clint McKenzie, executive director of the Downtown Kelowna Association,
says despite his association's numerous efforts to mitigate the public
relations damage downtown, this full-scale police sweep is just what his
members want.

"(Our members) have a right to conduct business and that is front and
centre for us right now. The level of street presence has been more in
everyone's face," he said.

The RCMP said Wednesday they were hitting downtown crime with all resources
including undercover officers, dog sections, plainclothes and the drug
section along with usual foot patrols through the area.

The Kelowna RCMP drug section alone found what they expected in making
eight arrests downtown.

They include a 28-year-old man arrested for breaching an undertaking; an
18-year-old man for possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking; a
21-year-old man arrested for carrying a concealed weapon; a 20-year-old man
arrested for possession of cocaine; a 30-year-old man and 34-year-old woman
arrested for possession of cocaine; and a 25-year-old woman arrested for
possession of cocaine.

RCMP Const. Heather Macdonald said police will be maintaining a regular
foot-patrol in the area and will even use overtime to staff its blitz campaign.

The police are also working with city bylaw, parks staff and other agencies
to clean the streets.

Mayor Walter Gray wanted to talk more about the city's official centennial
kickoff Thursday and not more about the city's homeless and criminal
vagrant problem.

He's impressed by the RCMP's resolve, but admits he has no idea where the
downtown crime problem will be pushed to.

"I would hope they would go back to wherever they came from. You have to
believe that our community and (others) have been victimized by the fact
that Vancouver has stepped up enforcement by driving people out of the east
end. I don't think there were more vagrants and bad people in B.C. than
there were before so they came from some where," he said.

"If they go into the neighbourhoods we will find them there. We have got to
be in their face."

The downtown sweep comes long before the city is prepared to deal with
anything beyond enforcing laws.

The mayor said actions this week have nothing to do with the four pillars
coalition, which is a longer term solution, albeit one started in response
to a crisis.

"This week is about making sure that we don't lose control of the streets
of Kelowna and we are doing that the old fashioned way," he said.

Gray is one of seven mayors on the Premier's task force to address the
homelessness problem.

Communities minister Murray Coell says the task force was established, in
part, to coordinate some services so the problem isn't swept back and forth
among different communities.

The province and the federal government have established an $84 million
fund to provide services for those pushed off the streets.

"Money for shelters, money for treatment programs is a federal and
provincial responsibility to the greatest extent," Coell said Thursday.

The provincial government has already ponied up for more police officers
and armed them with the Safe Streets Act. Now it's engaging social service
providers and municipalities for shelter, mental health, drug treatment and
combinations of the three, he said.

So far, just four proposals in the Lower Mainland have been selected but
more are coming, he promised.

He said he wasn't sure if the problem stems from a clean-up of downtown
eastside Vancouver but he knows it's a provincial problem.

"I think one of the problems B.C. has is people from across Canada come to
here because of the weather and the ability to sleep outside most of the
year," he said.

"We know this is just one of many problems when we are faced with the
growing use of drugs."