The City of Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba will introduce a plan to clear out encampments and move people into housing in 2025, Mayor Scott Gillingham and Premier Wab Kinew tell Global News.
“We’ll be going out and providing a 30-day period to work with people in camps,” Kinew said. “The bottom line is that a tent is not a permanent solution anymore.”
Kinew said service providers will move “camp by camp” and move people into housing with “wraparound” addictions and mental health supports within 30 days. Once all the people in the area are housed, they will not be able to return, though Kinew didn’t elaborate on how that would be enforced.
“We make it clear no one is coming back to this area in terms of tents. 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,” he said.
The plan will see all service providers working together, Kinew and Gillingham said.
“The province, the city, there’s a role for the federal government, Indigenous governments, non-profit sector, private sector, all moving in the same direction in a co-ordinated effort to address homelessness,” Gillingham said.
Gillingham said the city has set up a “non-profit housing concierge” for service providers.
“That person makes one call to one person and that person helps them navigate all things related to getting their housing built,” Gillingham said.
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Kinew says the province has acquired housing to support the plan.
“When there’s legal challenges or roadblocks put up to moving people out of tents, it relies on the argument that there’s not sufficient housing units for those folks. We believe we’ve addressed that,” he said.
Siloam Mission CEO Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud says the organization was consulted on the project, and plans to build 700 to 1,000 housing units within the next 10 years. She says while there are about 3,500 people experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg, there are only roughly 100 housing units in the city that rent at the level someone on employment and income assistance can afford.
“This plan … is focused on supporting folks out of encampments. The fact that it’s about bringing housing online to do that is the crucial piece,” she said.
St. Boniface Street Links founder Marion Willis says it’s a “significant step forward.”
“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.”
Social Planning Council of Winnipeg executive director Kate Kehler hopes the plan also includes measures to help people on the brink of homelessness stay housed.
“We have so many people who are still barely hanging on to their homes already,” she said.
She also is looking forward to more details on how the plan will be funded.
“When I say details, I’m actually talking about resources, as in money, in order to help everybody co-ordinate. Co-ordination does not come free. In fact, it’s not inexpensive even. But the teams already out there, they’re already doing the work. They already know how to work together. But there has to be substantial, substantial resources put towards allowing them to co-ordinate properly,” she said.
Downtown Community Safety Partnership executive director Greg Burnett was part of a delegation that travelled to Houston, Texas, to observe its homelessness model.
“I think the fact that we’re all talking at all levels of government again and all the organizations who are working on this is success,” he said.
Kinew said he has “often tried to urge everyone that we work with to move more quickly.”
“But the reality is we had to put the pieces into place together first,” he said.
“In a rich country like Canada, 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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