The owner of a Portage Avenue thrift shop says the city’s encampment ban has pushed dozens of homeless people from tent communities to spaces near her store.
Susan Lockhart, who runs Just Like New to You at 635 Portage Ave., says anywhere from 25 to 50 people can be found at any given time behind the store and along the back lane stretching between Sherbrook and Furby streets.
“Where are they going to go?” she said Wednesday from her shop. “I was just here on the weekend and I couldn’t get to our back door. There were people everywhere. Mattresses.”
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Susan Lockhart, who runs Just Like New to You at 635 Portage Ave., says she worries some customers are staying away because of the increased transient traffic.
Earlier this week, the city reported 275 people were known to be living in 72 encampments across Winnipeg — down from 100 encampments housing about 700 people last September. The report also noted that 141 sites have been remediated since the city’s encampment policy came into effect in November.
Additional data, set to be presented at next week’s community services committee meeting, suggests another 150 to 200 people are “rough sleeping” outside of encampments — in back lanes, streets and parks.
Those estimates are based on July’s point-in-time, or PiT, count conducted by the city’s outreach provider, Main Street Project.
The organization also estimates there could be as many as 70 additional people living in encampments whom outreach workers were unable to engage with during the 48-hour count.
“It’s hard to tell who is staying outside versus who is just outside at the time we connect with them,” said Main Street Project executive director Jamil Mahmood. “It’s more of an art than a science calculating that number.”
Mahmood said outreach workers are hearing confusion from people about where they can and cannot camp.
He said the city was warned displacement would be a consequence when the encampment policy came into effect. The city prohibits encampments in many public spaces, such as playgrounds and schools.
A digital map released by Resource Assistance for Youth earlier this year, which accounted for distance restrictions around schools, daycares and other facilities, suggested the policy effectively left little public property available for encampments.
Mahmood said people often don’t know what to expect and, in some cases, are scared. Others face harassment from people who don’t want them nearby, including people flying drones over them or taking videos.
“They don’t feel comfortable, so they’ll just move to somewhere else,” Mahmood said.
That movement, he said, may help explain why homelessness appears more visible in parts of Winnipeg even as the city’s encampment numbers have fallen.
Mahmood said the overall number of homeless people remains high when those staying at Siloam Mission are added to those known to be living in encampments and “sleeping rough.”
The difference, he said, is that many people who might previously have congregated in encampments are now scattered across the city.
“We also know there’s been a fair number of people lost due to overdose,” he said.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Main Street Project executive director Jamil Mahmood says outreach workers are hearing confusion from people about where they can and cannot camp.
Mahmood also believes the increasingly toxic drug supply has left some people with less capacity to manage their circumstances, leading them to remain wherever they happen to be.
He said the perception that homelessness is worsening is not necessarily borne out by the data. He believes the PiT numbers provide a good estimate of the overall population.
The issue, he said, is where people are now being seen.
“There’s people in new places where they have not been before, so it looks more visible than it ever has been, even though the numbers are saying it’s not. It’s the whole thing about perception versus reality.”
Lockhart believes the city is doing good work but wishes there were a non-partisan approach between the city and province to establish some form of managed space where people could have some dignity.
She said one person who had regularly visited her store recently moved into a nearby transitional housing unit.
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“He told me he’s just really, really lonely,” she said. “He told me he was clean now, but he misses all of his friends. He said he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it.”
More than 200 people have been housed through the province’s Your Way Home strategy, according to provincial figures. The thrift store owner said that as people move indoors, friends they once lived alongside in encampments sometimes gravitate toward the neighbourhoods where they have been housed.
She says the effects are increasingly being felt at her business. She said the shop has struggled to find volunteers and she worries some customers are staying away because of the increased transient traffic.
“People depend on us,” she said, adding that her store is often falls victim to theft. “Please don’t steal from us. We will help you. But if you come in and steal, you’re not welcome.”
scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca
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.
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