Managed encampment could provide bridge to housing

Charleswood

After reading an editorial, an article, and a letter to the editor on managed homeless encampments as well as an opinion piece on the drug crisis in Winnipeg — all featured recently in the Free Press — I’m having trouble understanding city council’s refusal to acknowledge that designated encampments could serve an important transitional purpose, and help address the mental health and drug crisis in our city. Aside from the comment that city resources should be directed to build more houses, and services that managed encampment would require are provincial, the city’s opposition to managed encampments as one way to address our homelessness problem doesn’t make fiscal or societal sense.

As the editorial “Designated encampments worth second look” suggests, it is too bad the idea for authorized homeless encampments that Coun. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) brought forward got no support from the city council, or the province. The editorial points out that managed encampments (as opposed to illegal encampments, which are being cleared) would move the homeless closer to safe place to live, and to the wraparound services provided by the provincial Your Way Home program.

According to an article “Call for managed homeless camp gets rough ride at city hall”, Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, told council the groundwork has been done and it would take little effort to set up a camp; stating $1.5 to $2 million annually for the next three years would be enough to operate a managed encampment. Every dollar invested would generate savings by reducing demands on emergency services including paramedics, police and other public services, she contends, while also identifying two potential sites: near the former boat launch by the Louise bridge, or a vacant industrial land north of Higgins underpass.

Jules Rocque’s letter to the editor “Needs of unhoused are immediate” provided a bridge between the debate between housing and homeless encampments, by stating it is not an either/or choice: build more housing or deal with encampments. Building more housing will take years, and the homeless need a safe place to live now. A managed, supported encampments, as proposed by Willis, will provide a temporary solution for the homeless until housing is available, and transitioning can occur, while also urging the city, province and community agencies to work together to address both the short and the long term needs.

While the recent Winnipeg police service sweep was an attempt to address complaints about open drug use and homelessness, it doesn’t address the root of the problem, Dan Lett wrote in a recent opinion piece, “Finding real and lasting solutions to drug crisis.” It is the same kind of thinking that allows homeless encampments to be cleared with no thought to where the people living there should go, he stated. Clearing encampments has not led to a reduction of in the number of people living in encampments, or using drug. They move to another site, or they return after the police have left.

A managed encampment would allow a coordinated approach for social services agencies to link those living in an encampment to housing, health care, mental health and addiction support. The city and province need to come up with the funding, and work with the community agencies to develop a plan. Homelessness is not going away anytime soon, and a designated, managed encampment could provide a temporary solution that would help mitigate the suffering of those who currently live on the streets.