Winnipeg is managing homelessness — not healing it

Downtown Winnipeg was supposed to be reborn. After years away, I came back hoping the stories of a cultural revival were true: new condos, a reimagined Forks, a lively SHED, and a city finding its energy again. I moved into a remodeled loft in the Exchange District, eager to be part of the city’s fresh start.

But what I found was a visible, unrelenting mental health crisis unfolding daily in our downtown streets, parks, and alleys.

Don’t get me wrong: Winnipeg is coming alive. New developments are underway, restaurants and festivals are vibrant, and pride is growing as Winnipeg finds its spark again. Yet, actually living in the neighbourhood felt a bit like a nightmare. I constantly heard fire trucks responding to what must have been 20 incidents per week. I saw fires burning in parkland, people shouting their traumas through alleyways, and I would constantly find discarded needles and Narcan kits scattered around benches. Sometimes, garbage was strewn across the streets. These were all just the daily scenes on my dog walks.

Every building downtown seemed to face the same problem. Garbage areas were broken into, storage cages pried open, and bins ransacked by people from encampments along the river. When one encampment was cleared, another soon appeared. The cycle kept repeating. Every one of my neighbours was concerned but felt powerless. Even with patrols, police, and outreach workers around, it was clear the city was only managing symptoms, not solving the real issues.

At first, I did what little I could: I picked up a broom and started cleaning sidewalks, parks, and even areas near encampments. It felt like the right thing to do. Soon, others joined me. We weren’t just cleaning; we were trying to bring back some dignity to places that had been neglected by those in charge.

What I eventually realized is that our problem isn’t garbage or policing — it’s a system that manages mental health and addiction without truly treating them.

Long-term care once existed in Manitoba. Institutions in Selkirk and Brandon were imperfect, even harsh, but they offered real treatment. Instead of reforming them, we dismantled them and replaced them with a patchwork of responsibility handed to police, social workers, and nonprofits — many competing for funding rather than coordinating care.

Today, Manitoba spends roughly $200 million a year on policing but less than half that on mental health and addictions treatment combined. Winnipeg police report that about one in three calls now involves a mental-health or substance-use crisis — an impossible burden for a force built for enforcement, not healing.

When the city proposed a safe-injection site off the Disraeli Freeway and across from Argyle School, I joined a community group invited to meet with both the premier and the Leader of the Opposition at the Legislature. We fully supported helping people struggling with addiction — our concern was where and how that help would be delivered. We urged the province to treat addiction in hospitals, not beside classrooms. To their credit, they listened and decided against placing the safe-injection site near the school.

But what followed showed they had missed the point entirely. The injection site plan was replaced with a 72-hour detention facility for people intoxicated on meth and other drugs. Not only did this ignore our concerns for the school and neighbourhood, but it also made it clear that containment, not care, remained the priority.

Now, Winnipeg plans to clear encampments from public spaces beginning mid-November, focusing on areas near schools and transit hubs. The cleanup may make some spaces safer for a time, but it doesn’t touch the root causes. The cost of neglect shows in every emergency call and every tent that returns a week later.

Providing treatment beds and support in healthcare settings is not only humane — it’s economical. Studies show every dollar invested in supportive housing and treatment saves up to two in policing, hospital, and emergency costs. We can keep paying to contain crises, or we can invest to prevent them.

Homelessness will always exist to some degree in any city, sometimes causing mental health challenges and sometimes resulting from them. The only sustainable solution is to build a permanent safety net within our mental health-care system, so that vulnerable people are supported both before they fall and after.

Manitoba could follow the leads from other countries and provinces: create 24-hour crisis-stabilization units, expand mobile mental-health teams, and guarantee treatment beds. A “hospital-to-housing” pathway could ensure that no one discharged from care ends up back in a tent. It’s not only humane — it’s economical. Studies show every dollar invested in supportive housing and treatment saves up to $2 in policing, emergency, and hospital costs.

At the end of the day, people deserve access to real treatment, and communities deserve safety and order. That balance can only come from a system built on recovery, not reaction. The solutions are simple: we can pay to contain crises, or invest to prevent them. But that will only happen when we choose care over containment.

Everyone that I met in the encampments shared the same story: of a support system that failed them before they ended up on the river. Restoring those systems through health care, stability, and responsibility is how I believe we can begin to turn things around.

Hersh Seth is a Winnipeg resident and community organizer advocating for humane, health-care-based approaches to mental health, addiction, and encampments.