Winnipeggers lose faith in homelessness battle City, province, agencies not doing enough: survey By: Tyler Searle Posted: 6:34 PM CDT Thursday, Sep. 25, 2025

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Winnipeg residents say the city, province and front-line organizations are failing in the fight against homelessness.

The results of a new Probe Research poll, conducted between Sept. 4 and Sept. 14, found the overall perception of how well public officials and front-line workers are managing homelessness has continued to decline over the past year.

“The proportion of people who are happy with what the city and the province are doing when it comes to addressing homelessness is quite low,” Probe Research principal Curtis Brown said Thursday.

“It is a big problem, it is a thorny problem and it’s not something you can magically snap your fingers and fix overnight… but it’s something where people are seeing what is happening in their communities and they are sad about it.”

About 10 per cent of the poll’s 600 respondents praised the work of the province and the City of Winnipeg for their work on homelessness, with the proportion of people who think the city is doing a poor job jumped to 58 per cent from 51 per cent in July 2024, Probe found.

Just one third of respondents praised social service and outreach agencies, and one in five credited the Winnipeg Police Service for its approach.

“I think the message is that people are frustrated. People are looking for governments and service providers to address this problem to a greater degree,” Brown said.

“I think the message is that people are frustrated.”

“It’s easy to say when you’re in Opposition or during an election campaign, ‘We’re going to fix this,’ but there is a danger to raising expectations… Progress is being made and things are being done, but the public needs to have confidence that is happening, and right now, they don’t.”

The survey comes amid record-high levels of homelessness in the Manitoba capital where the number of people living on the street nearly doubled last year, growing to an estimated 2,469 people, according to End Homelessness Winnipeg’s most recent street census.

That number is the highest recorded since the agency began conducting counting in 2015.

Efforts to respond to the issue are ongoing inside the Manitoba Legislature and at city hall, where councillors unanimously voted Thursday in favour of a proposal to ban encampments from a variety of public spaces, including near playgrounds, schools, roadways and railway crossings.

The Probe results suggest many Winnipeg residents support the move, with 63 per cent of respondents saying short-term encampments should only be allowed in specific areas of the city — as long as support services are available and the sites are maintained.

Women, younger adults and racialized people were more likely to adopt that position, as were NDP voters. Those respondents were more likely to feel sympathy and sadness when seeing encampments, the poll found.

Another 28 per cent said encampments should not be allowed anywhere. That view was held primarily by older, wealthier and non-racialized people, and among Progressive Conservative voters. Those respondents were more likely to feel uncomfortable, frustrated or angry when seeing encampments.

Of the remaining respondents, four per cent said there should be no restrictions whatsoever, and another four per cent said they were unsure.

Coun. Jeff Browaty, who led the charge on the encampment ban, said he was not surprised some people feel homelessness is worsening.

“Moving the needle on homelessness, getting more people out of encampments and into housing, is not only a city responsibility.”

“I don’t necessarily agree with the City of Winnipeg being primarily responsible for that… (but) I agree things, when it comes to homelessness, appear worse,” he said. “The city’s role — we are a player, we are a partner, we have a responsibility — but I would argue we are probably no more than 10 per cent of the solution.”

Housing and homelessness are responsibilities shared by the more senior levels of government, and shouldered, in part, by social service agencies, Mayor Scott Gillingham said.

“Moving the needle on homelessness, getting more people out of encampments and into housing, is not only a city responsibility,” he said.

“We are working very hard as a city on the matter of homelessness and will continue to do so. This is going to take time to address, but we are focused on it.”

Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said improving circumstances for people on the streets is a priority.

“I know folks are frustrated, and we feel that frustration, too,” she said. “I’d like them to know that this is a complex issue, and these folks have been left to their own accord for a long, long time.”

The minister said her government has found homes for 1,400 homeless or precariously housed people since taking power in 2023.

Ensuring such people have access to ongoing supports is critical to keeping them out of encampments and shelters, she said.

“We have to all come together and support, and work together on solving this issue because it isn’t just the ownership of government, it’s the ownership of everybody,” Smith said.

The Free Press reached out to End Homelessness Winnipeg regarding the poll results Thursday morning, but did not receive a response by end-of-day.

The survey sample was weighted slightly by age, gender, region and education level, and has a margin of error of four points. The margin of error is higher within each of the survey’s population sub-groups.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca