Hamilton, Ont., will take another look at the possibility of managing sanctioned encampment sites in the hopes of moving tents away from parks and residential spaces across the city.
Councillors approved a motion Friday that sends city staff on an exploratory mission to assess the costs and resources needed to facilitate sanctioned sites, yet maintain an encampment protocol that still allows tenting on some city-owned lands.
Ward 4 Coun. Tammy Hwang, who brought the motion forward, says the ask is in response to a deluge of emails, phone calls and delegations at city hall that have expressed their dissatisfaction with how legislators have been dealing with homelessness.
The ask draws upon “documents and research” presented during council discussions last August seeking resolutions to mitigate the growing number of tents popping up across municipal parks.
“One of the recommendations was not to move forward on a sanctioned site at that time because … they didn’t have enough time, effort and research to actually go forward with a bunch of this stuff,” Hwang explained.
Hwang says Hamilton’s encampment protocol has been challenging for residents and taxpayers and that was no more apparent than when 12 delegates last month gave council an earful, sharing anecdotes on damaged property, physical abuse and rodent issues.
Stephen Felker, a delegate at a June 19 general issues committee, questioned why a “group encampment” with support and security does not exist amid repeated incidents of violence he’s witnessed near his residence.
“I myself have called 911 because I was worried for the safety of a young woman who was involved in an ugly instant, right in back my home,” he explained.
“This goes on constantly. I don’t understand when I hear ‘we want to help them (because) they’re vulnerable and marginalized,’ yet we have not set up a group encampment where support and their safety are ensured.”
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For about a year, city leaders have struggled to find some sort of coexistence between those housed and the estimated 200 that fluctuate in and out of encampments around city-owned spaces.
Essentially a byproduct of an ongoing charter of rights battle in which homelessness supporters want encampments anywhere and everywhere, the city protocol manages tents through recently enacted bylaws limiting numbers in a cluster and how far they can be from public structures.
Hamilton police Supt. David Hennick, who manages beat officers in the community safety division, concurred with most delegates who appeared in June that the protocol isn’t meeting the “needs of the community” since only a couple of his officers can be allocated to reach out to the unhoused across some 600 city parks.
“I’ve only seen it get progressively worse over the course of the last four and a half years,” Hennick submitted.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t moved the needle helping to address the needs of either the unhoused and the community.”
City staff did begin working with a group last year seeking to bring a small homelessness sanctuary with support in the form of 25 tiny shelters, initially sought for either Cathedral Park, the former Dominion Glass property or the Tiffany-Barton lands.
However, Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters (HATS) failed to get approval from city politicians to house the community of eight-by-10 foot cabins at those locations and was later offered an empty city-owned lot at Strahcan Street East and James North.
Months later, that site would be taken off the table after HATS decided the investment required to make it work “was too significant.”
Hwang’s motion doesn’t call for any edict to remove or prohibit tents in city parks due to rights issues, only to add an option that might funnel some facing homelessness to a city-approved location.
Ward 8 coun. John-Paul Danko endorsed an “open review” of the city’s current methods to manage encampments but insisted upon sanctioned sites and no tents in parks.
“If this is both, I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between what we are talking about as a sanctioned encampment site and what members of the public are talking about,” Danko explained.
Ward 6 Coun. Tom Jackson also supported the exploration amid a “flawed protocol” but also wanted “a correlation” with removing tents from public parks.
“If the tents show up in those neighbourhood parks still, well …then for me the conversation will end right away,” Jackson said.
Mayor Andrea Horwath welcomed the “open-ended” report, expected to be brought before council in mid-August, and added that she endorses a spot with house-like structures and not tents.
“I would hope that we’re looking at something that is much more humane than a tent, for people to shelter in,” Horwath clarified.
“It’s not acceptable in the heat of the summer, which we’re facing right now. It’s not acceptable in the cold of the winter and not acceptable in a rainstorm.”
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