Homeless advocate in Penticton worried survey results about emergency shelter will have bias

Photo: City of Penticton

A Penticton advocate for the homeless has some concerns about an official survey seeking input from the community over pricey legal action against the province in an ongoing battle about an emergency homeless shelter.

Desiree Franz has been organizing protests and curating an online community ever since Penticton city council voted not to extend a temporary use permit for the old Victory Church emergency shelter on Winnipeg Street past the end of March, potentially putting its 42 residents out on the streets. That decision prompted the provincial government to step in and use paramountcy powers to keep it open.

Council has since voted to launch a public survey on the matter, operated by a third-party company out of Vernon, before making a decision as to whether to launch a legal challenge against the province which city staff estimate would come with a $200,000 to $300,000 price tag.

The survey, which has been available since March 31 and closes April 10, is available online, and over the phone, and paper copies can be requested at City Hall.

But Franz has concerns that the very nature of the short survey, which includes fewer than 10 multiple-choice questions and an option for written comment to council, will mean individuals who are homeless or at risk of being so are unheard.

"Anytime you do an online survey it's already biased for people who live in shelters," Franz said. "The city has said that the third-party company doing the survey will be looking at IP addresses, but again that's a bias, because in a shelter 30 people use the same IP address."

She worries that if the responses from the same IP address are verified or excluded by checking for duplicated answers, that may end with the whole lot being thrown out, as individuals who use or support the shelter are likely to give the same answers.

Franz operates the Facebook group "Penticton Overdose Prevention," where she said many discussions about the survey have taken place.

"We actually had a concerned citizen who got written copies of the survey and hand-delivered them to the shelter herself and other supportive housing units, in order to ensure everybody's voices would be heard. But we had to call and ask for those things. They didn't have the foresight to think that a survey of this magnitude would be better served to this population on paper," Franz said.

In the survey, one of the questions ask whether the respondent is a business owner. Another asks if the respondent is homeless, or at risk of being homeless.

"When they are saying it's unbiased, why do people have to identify their class in society?" Franz said.

She also wonders why the question is even on the table to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a legal challenge, when programs like Pathways Addictions Resource Centre are in need of funding to help the very people who potentially use the Winnipeg Street shelter.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to spend that $300,000 to keep one of those services open that you're asking the province to provide?" she asked.

Franz said she is tired of the "pissing match" between the municipal and provincial government.

"We're not saying that the Victory shelter is the perfect solution, but it's the solution we have right now until one comes to the table, which is our city's responsibility," Franz said.

"My concern is for the residents ... they are being forgotten about because each level of government wants to come out on top."

A Public Engagement Program Manager for the City of Penticton, JoAnne Kleb sent a statement in response to concerns about nature of the questions on the Winnipeg Street shelter survey and the IP address tracking.

"Our goal is to provide everyone in the city with an opportunity to share their feedback and to provide Council with an understanding of the community’s opinion. We’re seeing very good participation with the combination of survey methods that we are using and we are hearing from a wide range of interests in the community. If there appears to be blocks of submissions from one IP address, we can look at several factors to determine the cause. With what we’ve seen so far, it’s not looking like it’s a problem," the statement reads.