City staff get jump on spring homeless camp inspections

The city has ramped up its enforcement of homeless camps during the first spring since it banned them in many public spaces, including near schools and playgrounds.

“As we move into the springtime, we’re taking an increased approach with this, we’re increasing the number of site visits,” Chris Brens, the city’s manager of community development, told Tuesday’s meeting of the community services committee.

Spring is the time when new encampments begin to pop up.

The committee was told that since the policy was approved by council in mid-November, 199 inspections have taken place, including 91 in March alone.

Three encampments were removed and cleared last month, raising the total to 20 since November.

In each case, the site was flagged as a priority by the city’s encampment co-ordination team, and a number of steps may have been taken, including visits from outreach teams to contact people living on the site, placing signage that warns camping is not allowed, offering housing to people, and cleaning the site after they have been moved to proper housing.

Since November, the city has removed garbage from 58 sites — including those vacated by outreach teams and spots where people had left on their own. Currently, two bylaw officers have been assigned to carry out the ban in Winnipeg.

Committee chairwoman Coun. Vivian Santos said she’s received fewer calls regarding encampments in her Point Douglas ward in recent months, but she and other councillors expect reports to escalate as the weather gets warmer. She said she’s happy the city has beefed up its presence in anticipation of the increase.

“We’ve gone through a winter where (the policy) has been successful,” Santos said. “The real litmus test will be this spring and summertime.”

Encampments cannot be established within 50 metres of a playground, pool, spray pad or outdoor recreational facility for children, families or seniors, a school, daycare or adult care facility, or where they could be a hazard or obstruction to vehicular or pedestrian traffic, which includes a median or traffic island. They are banned from within 30 metres of a transit shelter, bridge, dock or pier and cannot be set up within 50 metres of a rail line or crossing.

The city renewed funding for Main Street Project’s outreach service on the condition it complies with the encampment policy. Brens said the city had met with representatives from the organization since awarding the contract.

“I think we’ll be able to work well moving into the spring to ensure that we’re both supporting folks in communities, but then also doing our best to return public spaces as best we can,” Brens said.

“The real litmus test will be this spring and summertime.”

The contract is worth $387,000. Main Street Project provides supports to people in camps on both sides of the Red River by conducting well-being checks, taking people to housing and emergency shelters and handing out clothing, blankets and water.

The community services committee receives monthly verbal updates on the encampment policy. A written report with more details on the encampment policy will be released May 4.

Data published by End Homelessness Winnipeg Monday found the number of people without stable housing in the city hit 8,248 in March, up 104 people from February. Out of that number, 4,463 had been homeless for at least six months in the past year or had been repeatedly homeless over several years.

Santos said she is surprised by the number.

“To see those numbers skyrocket does put some serious concerns on how we, as a whole as a city and a province, are going to assure that these people find (housing) units,” she said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca