VIDEO: Street cop fears impending closure of temporary winter shelters

Four months after the City of Kelowna's crackdown on downtown street camping, the number of people finding unofficial places to hunker down for the night is on the increase again.

Kelowna RCMP Sgt. Greg Woodcox said the situation downtown has been better since that time, but activity is increasing with the temperature.

"It's been better," said Woodcox about the last few months, but few people are using the remaining official overnight sheltering site. Instead, they are finding other places to lay down a bedroll. "We've noticed an increase in the last two to three weeks," he said. "More people as the weather gets better." 'Woody', as he's known by Kelowna's street crowd, knows all the downtown regulars. He said people have been slowly creeping back into less visible areas of the city.

"I find people in alleyways, behind buildings, basically every nook and cranny that they can take shelter from the weather," he explained. "Nobody sees them, nobody hears them, nobody deals with them right?"

What worries Woodcox, is what's going to happen when the temporary winter shelters close.

"I'm kind of concerned about that because frankly, we have enough people down here in the course of the day."

The number of people naturally increases with the warmer weather, but the closure of the shelters is expected to be a shock.

"Some of these shelters that are housing 40 people and if they close, they really have nowhere to go because the shelters down here, the Cornerstone and the Gospel Mission are already full," he explained. "So the only other options is to go to the street or find somewhere else to camp that's safe."

Woodcox said there are a lot of new faces added to the mix and he expects to be increasingly busy in the weeks and months ahead.

"Definitely we'll see an increase down here in the spring and summer for sure."