Mostyn Park quiet a month after homeless encampment vacated, cleaned up

AS the sun filtered through the bare branches of dormant trees, a thin blanket of white snow glazed the grounds of Mostyn Park on Wednesday.

It has been nearly one month since the park — once home to a sprawling encampment marked by colourful tents, tarps and piles of garbage — was remediated by the city. Residents were cleared out and housed, and the belongings and debris they left behind were removed.

“It’s quieter now,” said Carl, who declined to give his last name, taking a hit from his vape pen outside his home. His apartment sits among a cluster of buildings bordering the park near Balmoral Street and Granite Way.

The encampment had long been a high priority for the city, where fires were more than an occasional problem, posing a threat to the surrounding apartments.

In September, city council voted to prohibit encampments from transit shelters, playgrounds, pools, spray pads, recreation facilities, schools, daycares, adult care facilities, medians, traffic islands, bridges, docks, piers, rail lines and rail crossings, as well as wherever the camps obstruct traffic or pose a “life safety issue.”

A month later, the city rolled out its protocol for enforcing the new rules, which went into effect on Nov. 17.

To date, the city says it has remediated 11 sites.

“We don’t have a count of relocated individuals as we rely on our partners to link people with services and housing,” Kalen Qually, communications officer for the city, said in an email.

The city declined a request to interview Greg MacPherson, the city’s acting manager for community development, who is leading the encampment remediation process.

On Friday, MacPherson’s department will report to the city’s community service committee with its monthly “verbal” update on the encampment response protocol.

At an unrelated press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Scott Gillingham said he believes the encampment removal process has gone well.

“We said at the outset… we would have to make adjustments as we go,” he said.

Gillingham said everyone they moved out of the 11 encampments has been housed, although some have been placed in temporary accommodations.

“We’ll keep working on focusing on clearing spaces that are around parks and playground and daycares,” he said. “So far it’s going well. But the bottom line, and I’ve said it before, there’s just not enough housing. We need more housing as soon as we can get it built to get people into long-term housing with the supports that they need.”

Mostyn Park was in direct range of Building Blocks on Balmoral YMCA-YWCA of Winnipeg Child Care Centre, a daycare on the north side of Granite Way at the intersection of Balmoral Street.

The daycare, where staff declined to speak to the Free Press, had to hire a security guard.

Carl recalled a time when fire crews were dispatched to the site to battle blazes three times in one day.

“You’re worried about the buildings,” he said, pointing out each of the three on this particular corner of land. “But also (the encampment residents).”

One fire in mid-November came during the Everest Canadian Curling Club Championships held at Granite Curling Club. The club declined comment Wednesday.

While Carl said he wasn’t friends with the people living in the park, he came to recognize them over time as he passed through the area.

“But some people were afraid to walk past the park, worried that they would get attacked,” he said.

His experience, he said, was less threatening.

“They were usually pretty quiet,” he said.

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Another resident, who asked not to be named, said he had heard stories of some residents from the encampment encroaching on apartment property, but didn’t have many details on those incidents.

The man said he, too, feels it is quieter.

“You did hear, with some residents, shouting or loud noises or raised voices,” he said.

The only reminder of an encampment once sprawled out there Wednesday was a naloxone opioid overdose rescue kit fixed to a light pole, hanging within arms reach.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

Every piece of reporting Scott 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.