Proposed public hoarding bylaw would assist in housing effort: advocate

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This article was published 18/02/2022 (1356 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The head of St. Boniface Street Links is teaming up with a Winnipeg city councillor to help people experiencing homelessness get into housing, by shedding stuff they don’t need.

Coun. Shawn Nason (Transcona) is putting forward a motion at the East Kildonan Transcona community committee next week aimed at preventing hoarding in public places.

Nason said front-line workers with Street Links are finding it is tough to encourage people to leave bus shelters and tent encampments when they have accumulated so many items — some of which is hazardous.

“I want to support the individuals and help them get the help they need,” Nason said Friday.

“I’ve seen one bus shelter where they had a pile of garbage bags outside almost as high as the bus shelter. I saw another where the second exit is blocked by stuff, so if there was a fire there would be only one way out… It takes (Street Links) longer for them to say we need you to go to housing with all that stuff.”

Marion Willis, founder and executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, said her organization has been successful in recent months in convincing dozens of people to leave bus shelters and encampments and move into apartments.

“I haven’t met a single person who declines housing,” said Willis.

“St. Boniface had 32 encampments in April, but, as of today, we have zero. We have found housing for 109 people in 11 months. We have housed every single person, but it is a challenge and the challenge is the stuff they have hoarded.

“Landlords don’t want to rent to people with that much stuff.”

Willis said if there is a bylaw, then other infrastructure could be created, such as a warehouse where the homeless person’s possessions could be taken to and made secure.

“We could then find housing for the person and then take them… to their stuff where they could sort what is garbage, what can be sold or given away or what could be taken back to their place.”

Willis it would increase safety, too.

“We could prevent a lot of fires (at encampments) if we had a bylaw about hoarding,” she said.

“It is not taking away peoples’ stuff — it is taking away the garbage.”

Willis said she would also like to see hoarding in residences also be added to the bylaws, because she has seen cases where people have been forced to live in their enclosed porch or can’t even get inside their home because of hoarding.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca