A recent Superior Court ruling deeming bylaws prohibiting homeless encampments on municipal property unconstitutional hasn’t yet been tested in Collingwood.
However, local municipal officials, homelessness service providers and local law enforcement don’t see it happening in the near future based on the town’s existing approach to addressing homelessness encampments.
“This court ruling puts humanity first,” said the town’s director of parks, recreation and culture Dean Collver. “We hope that will help to empower and give direction to those who are funding and supporting solutions to help relieve the homelessness problem.
“We don’t think it changes much yet for us, but the future will tell us,” he added.
On Jan. 27, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued a decision stating that municipal bylaws that prohibit people experiencing homelessness from erecting encampments could be unconstitutional if there are no appropriate shelter alternatives available.
The decision came from an application from the Region of Waterloo regarding a bylaw that prohibits certain activities on municipal lands, including erecting a structure. The court accepted evidence that the number of people experiencing homelessness in the Region of Waterloo at the time exceeded the shelter capacity.
The ruling further states that the Waterloo bylaw violates Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects the right to life, liberty and security of the person.
While the Town of Collingwood also has a bylaw currently on the books in regards to camping in public parks, as well as a nuisance bylaw for situations where trespassing controls may be implemented, the town’s official stance is to use care and compassion as part of any decision to use a bylaw provision.
“When it comes to encampments, one of the things we’ve been looking at is, how to keep staff safe when it becomes necessary to interact with an encampment on public land,” said Collver. “We want to do it in a way that is conscious of the needs of all people, without disregarding there are people who are suffering and are going through challenging times.”
The County of Simcoe is tasked with overseeing homelessness supports and social services county-wide, and administers funding from the provincial and federal governments to social service providers, such as The Busby Centre to address homelessness locally.
However, as homelessness increases country-wide, other levels of government are also stepping in, including municipalities, to see how they can help to ease the strain on social services.
“In this post-pandemic era, we’re seeing levels (of homelessness) remaining at a higher level, which is leading to important conversations about, what are more permanent and long-lasting solutions?” said Collver.
And while Collver says the municipality doesn’t have an explicit responsibility to address homelessness as that mandate still falls to the county, he says the public safety element is one that the municipality is addressing.
“We’re trying to navigate a problem that is outside our jurisdiction, but at the same time, can have an impact on public safety. With our commitments to inclusion and equality, we want to make sure we’re not violating principles that we hold as really important,” said Collver.
Sara Peddle, executive director of The Busby Centre, oversees operations of both the centre’s Barrie and Collingwood (South Georgian Bay) shelters and operations. She says she sees differences in how the two communities approach homelessness encampments.
“From our experience, the Barrie police have been trying to work with agencies. It’s usually bylaw that’s a little more stringent on encampments. The city and their bylaw (department) are usually wanting to get people moving, because they work on a complaints-based approach,” said Peddle. “They will usually give us a heads up that they are going in.”
Peddle says while shelters in Barrie and Collingwood are usually running at full capacity, even if there are a few spaces available, some people experiencing homelessness will still choose to camp, especially in the summer months. This can be due to a variety of factors such as safety concerns, disagreement with shelter rules, or a desire to be in a less crowded space.
Around southern Georgian Bay, Peddle sid the OPP are "very connected" to the homeless community as well as the service agencies.
"They play a very integral role, as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “They work really well together and looking at how we can approach this so we’re not just chasing people to the next location.
“It’s a very collaborative, empowerment model. We support them where they are in South Georgian Bay. That’s very different from the city where it’s more about, you need to move along,” Peddle added.
Barrie police communications co-ordinator Peter Leon says the police department’s role is to provide support to City of Barrie bylaw when addressing encampments. He said even when safety concerns create a situation where the police are required to go into encampments to ask residents to move along, the residents are typically given multiple days notice and connections to social services.
“The day that bylaw goes in to move them, we are there to provide support if necessary,” said Leon. “We want to make sure everybody is safe, and that includes the people who have chosen to live there.”
He notes specific situations, especially in winter, when it’s necessary for encampments to be dismantled due to safety, especially when unsafe heating equipment is being used. He notes a recent incident in Orillia where an encampment caught fire. One of the two people living there only sustained minor injuries, however the couple lost all their possessions.
“There’s a lot of different approaches that can be undertaken. What we recognize as a police service is, these people are people too. They haven’t chosen this lifestyle. We need to work with them so they know there are options available to them,” said Leon.
Collingwood/Blue Mountain OPP detachment commander Insp. Loris Licharson explained in a recent interview that their detachment takes a proactive outreach approach to address homeless encampments. As a matter of procedure, they do not break down encampments or ask those living there to move along.
“There are so many factors that contribute to this particular issue,” Licharson said. “Our approach is, we believe in safe communities and treating people with respect and dignity.
“The goal is to build relationships, trust and comfort, so in times of crisis, we can rely on those established relationships and they will help us get through the difficult times,” he added.
Licharson says there are officers within the Collingwood OPP complement tasked with building those relationships, especially through their mental-health response unit.
“We want to make sure all people feel safe in our community. That includes those who may be in marginalized situations,” he said.
While Licharson says he’s aware of the recent court ruling, he says he doesn’t see it impacting the Collingwood OPP’s methods for addressing encampments.
“Ideally, our goal is to provide that measure of support and solutions as opposed to a move-along (approach),” he said. “There is no policing solution to this issue. This is a systemic and societal issue. We do find ourselves on the front lines and we have to do our best to support everybody involved.”
“There’s no silver bullet here we’re going to come up with to find a solution. It’s so much bigger than any one community partner,” said Licharson.
Peddle says the recent Superior Court ruling is an important piece to how municipalities across the province are dealing with homelessness encampments, and how they should be dealing with them moving forward.
“When we’re at crisis capacity such as we are now, even with minimal space in the shelter system, most of the shelters are extremely busy places,” she said. “Even if there is a bed, it’s possible it’s not a place someone feels that they could go.”
Peddle notes there are some other municipalities that lead with care/compassion approaches where they will have washrooms, garbage disposal and safe warming measures to help mitigate the damage having a long-term encampment can do to a site.
“It’s a more humane approach for people, to be able to make sure they’re safe in that situation,” she said. “This is an emergency that is happening in our communities. People are living homeless. We should be able to look at that red tape to make sure people aren’t chased out.”
While Busby doesn’t advise people who choose alternate forms of shelter where to set up their camps, Peddle says people experiencing homelessness are resilient and smart and likely will know about the ruling.
“They’ll be advising each other on how to stay safe,” she said. “Where they go is their choice, and we want to make sure that’s always an autonomous choice.”
Overall, Peddle says the right resource needed to extinguish homelessness is housing, and any other solutions, while helpful, are still Band-aids.
“We don’t have appropriate long-term solutions for shelter, mostly housing for people. We need to look at this as, how can we support people? Rather than continually chasing them away as a society,” she said. “I don’t want to chase people into the dark. I want to bring them into the light,” said Peddle.
