GOLD: Chaos of homeless encampments forces Kinew’s hand

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Wab Kinew took on two roles as Christmas approached. He was Santa to neighborhoods on our river banks, and the Grinch to social service agencies that have made perpetuating homeless encampments their business model.

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For months The Winnipeg Sun has shown the stark evidence that encampments on the Red and Assiniboine brought violence, intimidation and criminal activities to property and business owners and residents in the areas around Assiniboine Avenue, West Broadway and Waterfront Drive.

We told the stories of the victims — the busted fences and break-ins, the vandalism and graffiti, the dirty used needles all over the ground, and of seeing a little girl staying among the rogue addicts with no urgency from the authorities to find her.

A day after my column revealed that fed-up residents had suggested moving the encampments to the Legislature grounds, Premier Kinew told the media enough was enough and that “the idea that we accept tents as a permanent solution, I think it’s time we leave that in the past.”

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What he didn’t speak of, was why it was tolerated for so long. But earlier this fall, city councillor Sherri Rollins explained it was in no small part, because of court decisions outside Manitoba.

Activist judges had bestowed rights on the homeless who set up encampments, without prescribing their responsibilities to the community. Publicly-funded agencies and social justice warriors locally insisted the homeless had a right to pitch tents and tarps where they choose, pollute rivers parks and private property, do whatever they wanted, and dictate the quality of life for law-abiding Winnipeggers.

The premise, established in a B.C. Supreme Court case, was that municipalities couldn’t evict homeless camps unless it proved there was sufficient space in local shelters to provide alternate accommodation. One Ontario ruling that followed actually insisted that the City of Waterloo had to allow on-site drug use for shelters to qualify as “accessible.”

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“Winnipeg does not allow camping in parks or public land,” Rollins wrote to me in October. “We have three large encampments at 300 Assiniboine, Granite and in Point Douglas as well as many more smaller ones. So why don’t we simply enforce the bylaw? It is not simple. We have a bylaw like other cities, that has been challenged the same way others are being challenged across the country. While I would not say I am proud we have largely not seen the disputes leading to court action of other cities.”

That has all changed after an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled the City of Hamilton had not breached the Charter rights of 14 people evicted from public parks between 2021-23.

“The public is generally sympathetic to the homeless, but it tires of seeing its public spaces appropriated by lawless, unsanitary encampments,” wrote Justice James Ramsey. “There has to be a balance, and the democratic process is best equipped to achieve that balance.”

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What he cited was the balance that beleaguered residents near Winnipeg encampments have demanded for years.

“I observe that the most vulnerable includes not only the homeless but also the elderly person and the child who want to use a sidewalk or a city park without tiptoeing through used needles and human faeces,” his decision stated.

The same day as the court ruling, Kinew told CBC, “2025 is going to be the year you as the average Manitoban start to see big steps on homelessness.”

Having compiled an inventory of entry-level housing like bachelor suites, he says the province will “move camp by camp” to fill those units and provide mental health and other services to the new tenants, and elevate them to better accommodations in a graduated process he hopes will ensure success.

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More importantly, “We make it clear no one is coming back to this area in terms of tents,” Kinew told Global News. “We’re not going to allow tents to be set up in this area once we have people in housing and with supports people need to be successful.”

How he’s going to do that is a good question but the City finally enforcing the existing bylaws is a good guess.

St. Boniface Street Links founder Marion Willis called it “significant step forward,” telling Global “I feel a bit validated because that’s exactly what our team has been doing now for the past four or five years,” she said. “I congratulate the province on maybe having the courage to try something different.”

The media continually promoted organizations that scored contracts and donations to deliver water, food and “harm reduction supplies” and keep their payrolls padded while the sites expanded and turned downtown into a horror show. But that is now out of tune with Kinew’s policy.

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Yet to be mentioned is that his government has suspended funding to Regional Health Authorities that fund agencies handing out free needles in rural areas until a proper needle exchange and clean-up protocols are incorporated. When it’s imposed in Winnipeg that will be another lump of coal for the harm reduction ideologues.

Ensuring a steady supply of housing units to lodge people who’ve become homeless is the linchpin of Kinew’s vision. Siloam Mission has previously announced plans to build 700 to 1,000 housing units within the next 10 years.

Patrick Allard says there should be room for the private sector to also contribute — especially in the North End.

“There are enough vacant and boarded up homes in my neighbourhood that could be renovated and rented out at affordable rates,” Allard told The Sun.

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Allard spoke at City Hall a couple weeks ago about the idea at the Property and Development Committee, chaired by Coun. Rollins, and told how he’s restored three vacant houses to the market in the last year. The inner-city real estate investor and landlord suggested the committee explore reinstating a Rental Housing Improvement Program (RHIP) cancelled by the province in 2019.

Noting the number of run-down and abandoned homes on the tax rolls, he believes “The city and/or province could offer landlords either forgivable loans or a repayable loan over 30 years to renovate and make the home safe, and the landlord agrees to keep the rents at a prescribed affordable rate for 15-20 years.”

In return the city or province is registered on title to protect the taxpayer, and the governments earn interest and tax roll increases as the property value goes up.

Kinew has mentioned that the private sector will have a role to play in the new housing plan, and Allard’s suggestion could be a big boost to helping get the homeless into safe accommodations and off our streets permanently.

— Marty Gold is a Winnipeg journalist. You can find more of his work at The Great Canadian Talk Show.

Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca

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