City councillor frustrated by sluggish pace of encampment enforcement

A key supporter of the city’s ban on encampments at many public spaces wants enforcement sped up, after some sites remained for weeks or months.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy, who lobbied for the ban, said she’s frustrated at how long some encampments take to address.

“We have this new policy… my understanding (in top priority) areas, it doesn’t matter whether we have housing or not… there cannot be an encampment, a tent set up at all, in areas where kids can play. It sounds like we’re not doing that,” said Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre), during a community services committee meeting Monday.

“I thought we would have bylaw (officers) come and say, ‘You can’t be here, you need to move on now.’ That is really not what we’re doing.”

A city protocol took effect Nov. 17 that bans homeless camps from transit shelters, playgrounds, pools, spray pads, recreation facilities, schools, daycares, adult care facilities, traffic islands and medians, bridges, docks, piers, rail lines and rail crossings, as well as wherever the camps obstruct traffic or pose a “life safety issue.”

The ban affects the above “sensitive” areas at all times, while enforcement is prioritized during daytime hours at encampments on all other city property.

After reporting one encampment at the Orioles site of the Valour Community Centre to 311, Gilroy said she was told staff would inspect the property within 14 business days.

It should happen within 24 hours, she said.

“(Encampments) can grow substantially within a day, let alone 14 days,” said Gilroy.

The councillor said one person at that site appeared to have housing but stayed at the encampment on the community centre grounds anyway during the day.

Meanwhile, a community garden at 609 Langside St. was scattered with debris and had people moving in and out of it from October to April before it became vacant and the city cleaned it up, she said.

“If we’re not dealing with the issue… it’s not fair to the residents that are in (and around) there. There’s violence, there’s a lot of stuff that’s happening in these encampments. So, we’ve really got to be on top of them, especially if they’re in areas where kids are playing,” said Gilroy.

Chris Brens, the city’s manager of community development, said Winnipeg’s encampment protocol includes multiple steps and responses, which are affected by specific factors at each site. He said city staff can usually inspect top-priority encampments, such as those located on the properties deemed “sensitive,” within a couple of days.

Brens said an error at 311 may have caused confusion over the timeline Gilroy noted.

He said the entire protocol can take weeks to complete at each site, however, since assessment, outreach and warnings take place first, while the city also takes steps to avoid harming people by displacing them.

“If someone is refusing to leave an encampment site, we have to be able to offer them housing before we can use an enforcement approach…. That is our understanding of the legalities around this,” said Brens.

He said that step is needed to avoid infringing on someone’s rights.

“There are limitations on what the city can do,” said Brens.

Coun. Vivian Santos, chairwoman of the community services committee, said she understands concerns about the time it takes to address encampments at key public spaces. However, she stressed the city’s encampment protocol must support a provincial strategy to move people from encampments into housing.

“We’re not here to move people along. Housing the unsheltered residents is always going to be a No. 1 priority,” said Santos (Point Douglas).

That step is also key to preventing vulnerable people from moving on to business vestibules or other spots on private property, she said.

Gilroy said she believed the city limited its ban on some properties to daytime enforcement to allow space for people to move to and ensure sensitive areas could be cleared promptly.

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Since the number of Winnipeg encampments tends to grow during warmer months, Brens said the city will closely monitor the protocol over the next few months.

“We’re always trying to act as fast as we can. In some cases, we might have constraints based on the individual situations of a particular encampment. An individual might have specific needs, there might be specific legal requirements related to that site. So, it all depends on the site, who’s there, and then the actions we can take,” he said.

The city has removed encampments at 25 public properties since November, after officials made site visits, installed no-camping signs and/or provided offers of housing. The city also cleared garbage and debris to clean up 67 sites, including some vacated without municipal intervention, said Brens.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.