Sanctioned encampment fine, but only as first step

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/11/2024 (284 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the city grapples with a homelessness crisis and the pervasive dangers around homeless encampments, a proposal for a staffed and supervised site is appealing but rife with its own risks.

As encampments for the unhoused continue to pop up sporadically in Winnipeg, bringing with them garbage, fires and other dangers, the possibility of sanctioned encampments is now being floated as a short-term solution. Sanctioned encampments, if established, would set aside a specific piece of land on which the unhoused could set up their shelters. There, they could have access to simple dignities such as toilets and clean water as well as connections to social services that could help them deal with the issues ailing them.

It’s not a bad idea, but only if treated from the start as a temporary solution — which is how St. Boniface Street Links executive director Marion Willis described it when speaking to the Free Press. But such a camp’s “temporary” status is both the first step of its implementation and the greatest problem with the whole endeavour.

The idea is that a sanctioned encampment would provide a relatively safe place for the unhoused while other housing is found for them — be that shelter space, transitional housing and so on. But the molasses-slow pace of, say, building the new affordable housing the city needs, or setting up more shelter space, means inertia could doom a sanctioned encampment to “permanent” status very quickly. If that were to happen, the unhoused would be stuck where they are, and taxpayers would be stuck with the bill of cleaning up, supervising and staffing the encampment in the long term.

While a good citizen should want their tax dollars to go to helping those in need, we should also want those dollars to help the needy in substantial, long-term ways instead of in an interminable “triage” situation.

If a sanctioned encampment is to work, the city and province both need to be dedicated to moving quickly on the steps that follow.

The second problem is one of security. The city has already cleared out encampments if they are deemed to pose a significant risk to either the campers themselves or the surrounding community. Presumably, a sanctioned encampment would reduce the risks to the surrounding neighbourhood, but there is also a duty to protect the unhoused who seek sanctuary in the space.

The reality is, many in the unhoused community struggle with crises on the mental health and addictions fronts, which can lead to behaviours dangerous to themselves and other unhoused people.

If a sanctioned encampment ends up with a number of residents whose presence poses a risk to the residents of the encampment or the staff, they may have to be removed from the site — at which point they set up camp somewhere else, and then we have the original problem all over again.

These possibilities — that a sanctioned encampment would not be as safe or temporary as proposed — were cited by the Canadian Alliance to End Homeless as reason for their justifiable skepticism.

But there are positive signs of future action. The city, as this paper previously reported, is working with the province on the issue according to Mayor Scott Gillingham, who also spoke of talks with Ottawa about getting a piece of $250 million in federal funds for shelter spaces and transitional homes.

A sanctioned encampment is not a perfect solution, and its advocates don’t appear to think it is either — but it’s better than nothing. What we do know is that things cannot continue as they have been; we must take a first step on the road to something different, and better.

But without governments determined to take the steps after that, we’ll end up right back where we started.