Crews have cleared more homeless encampments as the City of Winnipeg ramps up enforcement of its new protocol, but one councillor says she worries the city is not acting fast enough on the most urgent calls.<\/p>\n
An update given to the community services committee Monday shows 25 encampments have been cleared, up from 20 in a recent written report. Crews have also cleaned up 67 sites, compared with the 58 previously reported, and conducted more than 200 visits since the protocol was introduced last November.<\/p>\n
City staff say that work has accelerated in recent weeks, with nearly 100 bylaw-related visits between March and April alone \u2014 roughly matching the number carried out in the previous four months combined.<\/p>\n
Daniel McIntyre Coun. Cindy Gilroy, who initiated the call for restrictions on encampments near places where children play, said she isn’t seeing that progress reflected in her ward.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, she pointed to a recent call to 311 about an encampment near a community centre, where children were present. She said she was told it could take up to two weeks for an inspection.<\/p>\n
The city’s rules prohibit encampments within 50 metres of schools, playgrounds, daycares and skating rinks, and within 30 metres of transit shelters, bridges, docks and similar public facilities.<\/p>\n
Gilroy questioned whether the city is responding quickly enough to what it considers “priority one” locations \u2014 areas near schools, playgrounds and other sensitive sites \u2014 where council has said encampments should not be allowed.<\/p>\n
The report’s author, city community development manager Chris Brens, pushed back on the suggestion inspections take that long, saying response times depend on demand but are usually within a few days. He also noted staff members and outreach workers are often already aware of sites before complaints are filed.<\/p>\n
Enforcement limits<\/p>\n
Under the city’s protocol, outreach workers are sent in first to assess needs and connect people with housing or supports. Bylaw officers can then issue notices and, in some cases, move to enforcement.<\/p>\n
But staff say they are limited in how quickly they can act.<\/p>\n
Brens told councillors that, based on legal guidance and case law in other jurisdictions, people generally must be offered housing before they can be forced to leave an encampment site.<\/p>\n
Gilroy argued the city should be able to move people out of high-priority areas more quickly, especially when safety is a concern.<\/p>\n
“I thought we would have bylaw officers come and say ‘You can’t be here, you have to move on now,'” she said during the meeting.<\/p>\n
In at least one instance, Gilroy noted a camp that had been cleared was quickly reoccupied before city crews had a chance to clean it up.<\/p>\n
Brens acknowledged the incident, which occurred at a site on Langside Street. He says workers from Main Street Project, the city’s outreach provider, connected with three people in the camp and offered them housing on a weekend, when city garbage crews were unavailable to clear the site.<\/p>\n
“I think in this case, we were surprised that housing was made available so quickly,” he said, adding changes have been made so work can be sequenced and sites remediated immediately after they are cleared.<\/p>\n
The report also provides a first look at the cost of the program. The city estimates it has spent $256,227.98 on work related to the encampment enforcement protocol since Nov. 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crews have cleared more homeless encampments as the City of Winnipeg ramps up enforcement of its new protocol,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[14501,3244,14500,3896,84],"class_list":["post-31938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-cindy-gilroy","tag-community-services-committee","tag-encampment","tag-homeless-encampments","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}