Whistler's mayor and social support services lead is disputing media reports that the resort's homeless are being relocated to Squamish in preparation for the Olympic Games.
According to Whistler Community Services Society executive director Greg McDonnell and Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed, last week's CBC and Vancouver Sun articles inaccurately reported on the fate of the resort's homeless during the Games.
"People aren't being pushed [out]," said Melamed.
Assumptions of forced relocation may arise from some homeless people's inability to access parking areas for the vehicles in which they sleep.
Melamed said the homeless could become displaced if they park on land that the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is permitted to use.
"VANOC is taking full use of some of the areas that some of the under housed individuals have been accustomed to using, and as a result for short period of time, I would imagine, for the duration of the Games [the homeless] may find emergency housing in Squamish," he said.
"In this case if they happen to be parked in a parking lot that's to be used by VANOC, that's a coincidence more than something directly attributable to the Games."
The articles did not state who would relocate the homeless or in what way. It quoted Squamish Sea to Sky Community Services homeless outreach worker Peter Harker saying Squamish had become a catchment for Whistler's homeless and closures of parking lots created a situation where the homeless "forced [out] circumstantially."
Harker this week referred questions to a Sea to Sky Community Services executive director Lois Wynn.
The article stated that at least two dozen homeless people from Whistler have already relocated to Squamish.
McDonnell said Whistler doesn't have that many homeless, and the few the resort does have are not being relocated.
"We truly do not have 24 homeless people in Whistler, we do not. But we probably have four to six of them," he said. "At no time has anyone gone around from our agency and relocated anybody [to Squamish]."
He said confusion may have stemmed from the fact when Whistler-based homeless people require help, such as through Service Canada, welfare or medical treatments or access to the Squamish Helping Hands Society - the area's only 24-hour drop-in shelter which is available to everyone in the corridor - the Whistler Community Services Society provides them with bus tickets into town.
"They're not given a bus ticket to say 'See you later, you're relocated,'" said McDonnell.
"They are given a bus ticket in terms of assisting in their needs and then they return to Whistler. Relocation kind of assumes that someone's got this mission or mandate to go and pick something up and move it somewhere else and that has not been any intention by anyone in Whistler."
If Squamish does see a surge in the homeless population, the town's social services would be hard pressed to help them with shelter.
Dennis Bartlett, the chairperson for the Squamish Helping Hands Society said the downtown shelter's 15 beds are at full capacity. Drop in site co-ordinator Melinda Peters said she hasn't turned any of the 80-plus clients away from the shelter since September, but added she would be challenged if numbers rise.
"If we have more than 15, we cannot bring them into the shelter," she said. "So basically what we do is we give them blankets, and something warm to eat and something warm to drink and then they have to go."
