This is the final story in a five-part series on homelessness in South Surrey and White Rock. Read Part one, two, three and four.
In a small corner of an empty parking lot behind White Rock’s old KFC restaurant, three men and a woman stand chatting and eating some snacks, their belongings piled nearby.
It is only upon closer examination that you see that all three are shaking in the cold breeze.
They were planning on spending the night in the lot, but the property owner called the police and so they were forced to move on.
“We’re taking three parking spots so they want us to leave,” Oliver Secord, one of the men, says.
It feels odd for him, being removed from every area of the community he was raised in. The hospital where he was born is not far from the elementary and high school where he spent much of his adolescence.
The 32-year-old’s fingers are blue from the cold on a mid-April evening. Secord and his friends had been sleeping in the area’s overnight shelter until it closed earlier than expected, on March 16.
“I’ve always been addicted to drugs for 19 years, but I would use, max., for 10 months then I would clean up and go to a recovery centre, be good for two, three years maybe, get my life together, get a place, a car,” Secord says.
That changed following a string of personal tragedies.
“I’ve never been high this long my entire life,” he says.
“It’s just, I found my identical twin brother dead in his bedroom… he died in the middle of the night. I didn’t even start getting over that or help for that when my dad got diagnosed with cancer… within four months he was dead, too.
“It’s just one thing after the other. I still haven’t dealt with my brother yet, but I gotta get through this, I can’t live like this.”
Around the same time, Secord also lost two of his favourite uncles. His large, bustling family, who would meet several times a year, packing his mother’s home, began to dwindle.
“Every holiday, my mom cooks a huge meal for 15 people because it’s usually 15 people there. Now it’s just me. She still cooks a meal for 15 people but it’s just the two of us now,” he says.
Secord has slept indoors for about 30 days altogether over the last three years, he says.
“Sleeping in a shelter with 60 other homeless people, there’s not much sleeping. Someone’s getting up to go to the bathroom, making noise, there’s a couple (people) rummaging through others’ bags, I’ve had hot coffee spilled on me in the middle of the night,” Secord says.
Born and raised in White Rock, Secord doesn’t want to leave his home, he says, but the supports he desires are not available.
When asked if a supportive housing facility — a home with access to physical and mental health care, food, clothing, employment help, harm-reduction or recovery assistance — would be something he would want, Secord appears to be stunned.
“I’ve never heard of that,” he replies after a long pause, digesting what that would mean for him.
Searching for sites in South Surrey
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke says that although shelters, supportive housing, outreach organizations and recovery programs exist in the city, they’re not enough to meeting the growing demand.
“What we don’t have in Surrey and what is really a serious need, we don’t have enough detox in Fraser Health Authority. We only have one in the entire authority that is in Surrey and we need more ability to outreach and reach people where they are and sometimes that’s in a really sad place,” Locke says.
“Do we need more shelter housing? Yes, but shelter housing is not the goal.”
What’s needed, she says, is more supportive housing.
This year, two supportive housing facilities will be opening in Surrey, both in the Whalley area: Safe Sleep
The other, at 13102 112 Ave., operated by Pacific Community Resources Society, will offer 30 units for youths.
While areas of Surrey, including Newton, Whalley and Guildford have seen dedicated housing built for people experiencing homelessness, South Surrey has not.
“It is definitely a goal for us. We see every town centre in Surrey as having a need for some supportive housing. We are looking at spaces in South Surrey,” Locke says.
“Anybody who lives in South Surrey knows there is a need there. We need to be talking to the neighbours because there has been some push-back in South Surrey but, regardless, there are humans on the street in South Surrey and White Rock.”
Number of people needing help ‘most we’ve had ever’
The need for a solution on the Semiahmoo Peninsula is clear. This past winter season kicked off with an increase in services, with the local overnight shelter open nightly rather than just during extreme weather alerts. That ended prematurely, however, when the overnight shelter in the area closed early.
“The Kwomais Lodge – Sanford Hall location offered temporary emergency shelter from March 1 to 16, 2023. For the remainder of the EWR (extreme weather response) season, the City is supporting a plan to provide spaces and transport people to existing shelters that have capacity,” reads an emailed statement attributed to the City of Surrey’s Community Services.
So, where did everyone go during the night?
While some individuals were able to get some rest in shelters around Surrey and Langley, many were left sleeping outdoors, on cold concrete, says Upkar Singh Tatlay, who ran the daytime warming centre in White Rock.
Finding a place to stay for every single person has been an issue for some time, but where the number of people known to be sleeping outdoors on the Peninsula used to be one or two, that number has risen to a dozen on most nights, according to Tatlay.
“Once the daytime centre closes for the season, the population gets displaced,” he adds.
“At our site, we have nurses on some days, they’re able to come in and do all the things that are keeping them tied to and tethered to this area. When you close that, now people are dispersed. You won’t be able to provide that same level of service. Now you’re literally scrambling to find where people are. You’re going to parking garages, bushes.”
That’s been the experience of a local outreach team, which runs a few shifts a week at different times of day. Through Sources Foundation, the team drives around the Semiahmoo Peninsula with a trunk full of clothing, snacks, harm-reduction gear and water.
“At first we thought people were moving on… but after doing some other outreach routes, we saw that they were just moving to different locations,” says Leanne Utendale, manager of the outreach team.
The number of people accessing their services has reached the highest level they have ever seen, Utendale says.
Tatlay says there have been “countless times” when people were ready for treatment or for housing, but after making several calls, there was no immediate option. Through the season, seven people were successful in moving into housing out of roughly 40 people, while many more remain on waiting lists.
Changes to White Rock’s supports upcoming
White Rock Mayor Megan Knight says she is working in collaboration with Surrey to come up with a plan to support homeless people when the weather turns colder.
“What we would like to see is something being built. These people need to be housed,” Knight said.
“They just need housing… and then programs they need – because some of them have mental illness, some of them have drug addiction, but not all. Some just lost their homes due to unusual circumstances, some are living out of vans.
“It’s too big a problem to dump on the municipalities,” she says.
Asked if the City of White Rock would support the building of units to house people currently living on the streets, Knight said it would likely have to be north of 16 Avenue because of land constraints.
Additionally, she does not see a place in White Rock next winter for the daytime warming centre.
“Going forward for next year, I can’t put that trailer back in that park. I just can’t, it’s just not acceptable for the families going into that park, they’re very upset,” Knight says, adding it will likely be moved to Surrey.
White Rock Coun. David Chesney, meanwhile, says the city is currently focused elsewhere – specifically on creating affordable housing for seniors on fixed incomes who are at risk of becoming homeless.
In his vision, a new civic centre would be built, with below-market housing units on the floors above.
But supporting people who are living on the streets and using substances, or who have mental health issues, is not the city’s focus right now, he says.
“I don’t believe council is focused, at this point in time, on necessarily finding the solution to that sector of people, in my opinion. That’s not been put on the table.
“Our concern more is people who are very shortly to be joining the ranks of the homeless, as rents increase exponentially,” he says.
Meanwhile, Knight says, police and city hall continue to get phone calls from residents complaining about unhoused people loitering on streets.
“People experiencing homelessness — it’s not a crime,” she says. “You can’t just tell them to get up and move. They can be on the street, it’s legal.”
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