City encouraged by encampment report

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Brandon’s community housing and wellness co-ordinator praised a report issued by the federal Housing Advocate on Tuesday calling for changes to the way homeless encampments are handled in Canada.

Titled “Upholding dignity and human rights: the Federal Housing Advocate’s review of homeless encampments,” the 36-page report issued by Marie-Josée Houle calls encampments “a national human rights crisis” and calls for various levels of government to do more to address the needs of people living in them and to stop forcibly evicting their inhabitants.

Governments must ensure that homeless people have permanent housing as soon as possible, and in the meantime, authorities need to equip encampments with basic services, such as clean water and garbage removal, so residents can live in dignity, the report said.

“For people living in these encampments, every day is a matter of life and death … At the same time, encampments represent an effort by people who are unhoused to claim their human rights and meet their most basic needs,” the document says. “Canada has the capacity to solve this crisis. What is lacking is sufficient political will, resources and co-ordination.”

Speaking to the Sun by phone Tuesday afternoon, Brandon housing co-ordinator Shannon Saltarelli said she was glad the report identifies housing as a human right and that many of the suggestions it makes have already been implemented by the city.

As an example, an encampment to the north of Pacific Avenue, near the Westman Immigrant Services building, was cleared last month. However, Saltarelli said the occupants were not forced to leave and instead worked with the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation’s Ask Auntie program to get temporary housing at the Colonial Inn.

That was made possible because workers were able to help the inhabitants secure identification cards and then apply for employment and income assistance (EIA) support.

“The shelter portion of EIA was able to cover the vast majority of the hotel stays,” Saltarelli said. “And then I was able to top off a little out of my budgets for those short-term stays. Everybody had an opportunity to get whatever they wanted out of their encampments, but most people just chose to leave everything behind and get kind of a fresh start.”

Working with people to understand what their barriers to housing are is important, Saltarelli said, because otherwise dismantling an encampment just causes people to become disconnected from the support they’re receiving and simply moves them from one spot to another.

Saltarelli said local agencies and organizations like Brandon Bear Clan, Prairie Mountain Health and the Sexuality Education Resource Centre are working on outreach to make sure people experiencing homelessness have access to necessities, but there’s room for improvement on that front in partnership with other levels of government.

“Part of that has to come with capacity building and funding,” Saltarelli said.

“And that’s where I am really hoping we can work with all levels of government to provide that support for Brandon, where we can see more of meeting people where they’re at. Right now, when we go into encampments like this, it’s really people-centric. It’s really about having a conversation with people first and finding out what they’re willing to share about their situation.”

The report recommends that the role of police be de-emphasized when responding to encampments. Saltarelli said that when engaging people experiencing homelessness, she typically only brings police cadets with her rather than sworn officers unless there are safety concerns.

The task is trickier for the city when encampments are on private property, which can legally be considered trespassing. Last year, police from CPKC Rail evicted an encampment further to the east on Pacific Avenue next to the railway tracks.

“It’s within the rights of that property owner to remove an encampment off their property,” Saltarelli said. “But where we would come in is … let’s do this in a supportive way.”

However, Saltarelli said such examples are rare, with most groups reaching out to the city about how to deal with an encampment before acting.

In an email, CPKC spokesman Terry Cunha said the railway would “continue to work with local police services and other stakeholders to protect public safety near active railroad lines” when asked about how it would handle encampments on its property in the wake of the report.

Saltarelli expressed hope that the report could lead to consistency in how homelessness is tackled at each level of government and that ongoing projects to improve the stock of transitional and supportive housing in Brandon will play important roles locally.

Also recommended in the report is working in consultation and co-operation with Indigenous groups. Saltarelli said Indigenous people are overrepresented when it comes to those experiencing homelessness in Brandon and collaboration with Indigenous organizations like Ask Auntie is important.

Other suggestions include the establishment of 24-7 drop-in centres to provide people with shelter from the weather.

Late last year, the BNRC and Life’s Journey Inc. partnered together to launch a temporary drop-in shelter as the search continues for a permanent location.

Mayor Jeff Fawcett said Tuesday he thought Brandon is close on a lot of the report’s calls to action.

“I like that they break down the levels of government and the understanding that (responsibility) doesn’t just fall on municipalities,” Fawcett said. “The other levels of government do understand that … We just need to make sure that we are working together the best we can.”

He said Brandon is fortunate to have community and Indigenous organizations that work together in tackling homelessness-related problems, which he’s not sure is always the case in larger centres.

Reached by phone, provincial Housing Minister Bernadette Smith said she hadn’t yet been able to read the report, but said one of her mandates is to end chronic homelessness in Manitoba within eight years.

Regarding Brandon, she said she has made six trips to the city since being appointed to the portfolio. The minister praised the BNRC and Life’s Journey for establishing the drop-in centre and said her government has been working toward giving people who live in encampments a safe place to call home.

“That’s one of the main issues that people are having to find themselves in a tent,” Smith said.

“We are working diligently to try to address that issue with non-profits, working with management companies, working with the private sector with rent supplements to get folks who are unhoused into housing … We’ve also accessed hotels. It’s not ideal, but we want to make sure that people have somewhere warm and safe. We have people out in Brandon who are in hotels as well as some that are in those safe and warm spaces.”

Like Saltarelli, Smith emphasized the need for outreach efforts to speak with people experiencing homelessness and listen to their needs.

There are safety risks in tent cities, Houle said in the report, but dismantling them pushes people further into the margins, where they’re more vulnerable.

What’s driving the growth of encampments across Canada, the report said, is a severe shortage of housing for low-income people, as well as inadequate funding of community services and mental-health supports.

It asks the federal government to establish a national encampments response plan by Aug. 31 that would fulfil her calls to action.

The report asks provinces to increase welfare or income-support rates, as well as minimum wages, and adopt legislation recognizing housing as a human right.

The federal government should work with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation to make federal funding for cities and provinces tied to a commitment to upholding the human right to housing, the report said.

And cities should ensure encampments have electricity, clean water, heat and sanitation services.

Above all, Houle said governments should not be deciding what’s best for unhoused people without their input.

» cslark@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press

» X: @ColinSlark