Homeless people again occupying cleared encampment along river in East Exchange

NEW makeshift shelters have appeared again in a recently cleared East Exchange area along the Red River that had been the site of a homeless encampment.

One area resident, who hoped the space would become a forest again, expressed dismay Friday.

“Three weeks ago, there was not one encampment from the stretch from the Alexander Docks to the roundabout just before you get to Higgins (Avenue),” Laurie Nealin said.

“Then, a week later, I did the walk again and there were three new encampments. And then, a week later there was a fourth encampment all in the cleaned-up space,” Nealin said before walking the stretch of riverbank along Waterfront Drive.

Gone is the optimism she said she felt when the province announced the Your Way Home plan in January to move vulnerable people from encampments into housing with needed supports.

Premier Wab Kinew’s strategy to end chronic homelessness within two terms started with a plan to house people living in Winnipeg encampments and clean up the sites.

The 15-page Your Way Home plan, to begin in February, aimed to clear 300 people — one encampment at a time — with a 30-day window to move residents into appropriate housing and provide necessary supports.

Once the residents have transitioned into housing, the city will clean and decommission the site, restoring it to its original public use.

“The city, province and community organizations will work together to regularly monitor the site to prevent further encampments from being established,” it says on Page 9 of the plan.

“Our expectation was once the site is cleaned and decommissioned, measures will be taken to ensure that no new encampments are established,” Nealin said.

“The other problem is, even though the space is cleaned out, that forest is decimated.”

A City of Winnipeg sign declares it is a “Forest Naturalization Area.”

Nealin pointed to trees that have been damaged and burned and the once-lush green space riverbank now trampled, hard-packed bare earth.

She spotted a city worker in safety gear combing the area for sharps and syringes. Nealin asked if she could take the city worker to see the sprawling mound of junk at a large encampment further down the riverbank that’s been rummaged through and spread beyond the yellow caution tape that marked it for pickup by the city.

Across the river, more encampments have appeared.

“We have more encampments on the east side of the river than we’ve ever had,” said Marion Willis of St. Boniface Street Links, who said the number has grown to 14 since the beginning of April.

City spokesperson Kalen Qually said 311 got 78 calls about occupied encampments in April, compared to 66 last year.

Qually said the city doesn’t have data tracking encampment locations.

“Due to their nature, the status and location of an encampment can change from one day to the next,” he said in an email.

Willis said until more is done to address the addictions crisis, people will end up in shelters and encampments.

“It’s like that game of whack-a-mole — you actually need to go in there, you need to build the relationships with people,” she said. “You have to do it that way, because if you don’t, all you’re really doing is emptying an encampment for somebody else to come and occupy it.

Street Links connects people to income and mental-health supports, addiction recovery and housing.

“We really work with people to get them out and to get them either transitionally housed or right into housing,” Willis said, adding it’s important to work with the residents to clean up the areas.

That includes paying them $50 to help.

“We can’t be accused of throwing their stuff out because they’re helping us decide what goes out,” she said. “The encampment is cleaned up, we’re handing them their keys and taking them to their housing. So it’s all done in one sweep there.”

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A spokesperson for Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said Friday that the Your Way Home strategy has secured housing and wraparound supports to house 30 people who were in 16 encampments since February.

Partner organizations, including Sunshine House, Main Street Project and Siloam Mission have been able to open new buildings for housing with financial support from government.

“We can already see a decline in new encampments due to prevention work, and we’re also working with partners, such as the City of Winnipeg, to clean up and monitor former encampments,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“As we bring more housing units online and work to house the remaining people who live in encampments, Manitobans can be assured we are focused to make sure no one is forced to live in a tent.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol 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.