Communication sought after camp cleared

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This article was published 03/08/2023 (1155 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Brandon is hoping for better communication with Canadian Pacific Kansas City going forward after the rail company’s police force cleared a tent encampment downtown near their tracks last week.

As first reported by the CBC, CPKC Police cleared out a bunch of tents near the railway’s property along Pacific Avenue on July 26.

CPKC is the entity that took over operations for Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern after the two companies merged earlier this year.

The company did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but a spokesperson told the CBC that the encampment was cleared due to safety concerns and proximity to an active rail yard.

The Sun visited another encampment on Wednesday further to the west from the one that was cleared last week.

Residents there did not want to speak on the record but said some of the people present had been at the other encampment when it was cleared and received no notice before CPKC Police started that process.

Brandon’s community housing and wellness co-ordinator, Shannon Saltarelli, said Wednesday that she was not aware of CPKC Police giving advance notice to city departments or Brandon Police Services’ community policing department before clearing the encampment.

She said she first heard about the encampment being cleared after getting a phone call from someone working with the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation’s Ask Auntie program while it was still happening.

When they arrived on scene, they saw rail police gathered across the tracks and waved them over to talk.

“They were very understanding of the stress they had just caused in the community,” Saltarelli said.

“We put forward a request at that time that in the future they communicate with us ahead of time so that we as a community would be able to go to an encampment and say ‘OK, you’re on CP Rail property, they’re going to be coming tomorrow, the space has to be cleared away.’”

After the tents were cleared, Saltarelli said community organizations did their best to assist those who were displaced.

When the city is in a position where it is asked to deal with an encampment on private property, Saltarelli said the approach is to provide advance notice to those who will be affected and then offer to deal with items that are left behind.

“But we never go in and remove encampments on our own accord,” she said. “Anything left behind, we will take care of cleaning it up. That allows them to sort of pack up what they can take.”

Saltarelli didn’t have statistics but said the city has had to move encampments within the last couple of years. Encampments are not moved without contacting the occupants unless they appear to be abandoned after making several verification attempts.

She said she couldn’t speak about homelessness in Brandon without mentioning the lack of available transitional housing as well as the presence of just one emergency shelter in the city.

While projects in the works from groups like the John Howard Society of Brandon and Westman Youth for Christ will make an impact, Saltarelli said, Brandon will continue to see people living in encampments or finding alternative ways of living until more resources become available.

In an email, Coun. Heather Karrouze (Ward 1) stressed that communication will be crucial going forward. Karrouze is a member of the city’s poverty committee.

“It is a distressing fact that some of the most vulnerable in our community are not able to access safe and affordable shelter,” she wrote. “It is important to communicate with those sheltering in encampments, prior to their removal, to ensure that appropriate supports and assistance can be offered to those individuals who are struggling to meet basic needs.”

Her colleague on the committee, Coun. Tyson Tame (Ward 10), said in a phone interview he’d like a line of communication to be established between the railway and the city.

“It would sure be nice to have a system in place whereby we could have our organization get involved on the front end and help the individuals potentially take their sites down and just allow for some dignity and care on these people’s belongings, because it’s their home,” he said.

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