City seeing fewer numbers of entrenched encampments
By Lethbridge Herald on August 18, 2023.
A small encampment is seen behind city hall on Thursday morning. The City’s encampment strategy is seeing a trend toward more mobile camps this year.
Herald photo by Al BeeberAl Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Fewer entrenched camps are being seen in Lethbridge this year, media was told Thursday during an update on the City’s encampment strategy.
Matthew Pitcher, Housing Solutions Co-ordinator with the City of Lethbridge, said at City Hall the lower numbers of entrenched camps is one of several trends being noticed this year.
Since the start of the co-ordinated response, there have been 384 calls come in for a variety of scenarios including needle debris, biohazard debris related to homelessness and encampment calls, Pitcher said.
Of those calls, 105 were about encampment and of those as of Aug. 11, the City had responded to 104 of them, Pitcher said.
Of the 104 calls, the City identified a total of 48 encampments, he said. The difference between the two numbers can be attributed to a variety of things including debris calls that were determined not to be encampments and multiple calls about the same camp.
Of the 48 identified camps, the City has successfully removed 47 of them, said Pitcher.
The lower number of entrenched camps “is a huge benefit to our community. It provides a safer encampment than what we were seeing last summer with the more entrenched encampments at specific locations” and large numbers of people, he added.
“We’re seeing more encampments that are setting up in the evening” and are taken down the following day, camps being more mobile, he said.
“Our team is working with a broader inter-agency encampment response team which includes multiple departments within the City, Lethbridge Police Services; it also includes contracted services providers that were contracted under the funding that was established through the encampment strategy,” added Pitcher.
“Additionally, outside of just encampment response to specific locations our team has also been working very collaboratively with other internal City departments as well as community stakeholders who are being more affected by these encampments. So we’ve been working through fostering some collaborative relationships that when these events are occurring we’re able to deal with them.”
Pitcher added that the City is seeing general success while recognizing there are always opportunities to improve.
The City is also actively seeking ways to do that through continuous improvement strategies such as keeping the finger on the pulse of the community and making sure the City response is tailored to the changing conditions in the community.
An entrenched encampment, Pitcher said, is one with multiple structures and people such as seen at the Civic Centre last year.
And with such camps, there are often greater risk factors. When people stay in one place for a longer period, there is more debris accumulated, for example.
The City is instead seeing much more mobile camps with fewer items and fewer people, Pitcher added.
The City’s is getting to people quickly and while the strategy is preventing entrenched encampments, the response is also having the effect of mobilizing camps which are spreading into more remote areas of the city, Pitcher said.
Those areas include the coulees and river bottom and places like the Galt Museum, Helen Schuler Coulee Centre and the University of Lethbridge and the City is working with those places to make sure an appropriate response can be made when camps appear.
Pitcher said the City recognizes that packing up belongings in the high temperatures the City is experiencing can be burdensome so the co-ordinated cleanup has been delayed.
Pitcher’s role oversees the encampment response and staff dedicated to it but on a broader scale he will also be working with the shelter development strategy approved by city council and the municipal housing strategy and working to make systemic change to address affordability and access.
Since June 19, a total of 174 calls have been made to the City about encampments. The City has done 14 co-ordinated cleanups with a total of 542 structures and 27,000 kilograms of debris removed, says the City.
One priority of the response is to have onsite supports to connect people to the resources they need, says the City.
The new Street Medicine Outreach program, which is operated by the Blood Tribe Department of Health, has been operating for just over a month and has been engaging with the vulnerable to provide mobile medical services for things such as medical referrals, wound care and dressing changes.
Sergeant Ryan Darroch of the LPS , who is in charge of the Downtown Policing Unit, said the strategy “is still moving in a positive direction. We are seeing a lot of compliance, we are seeing less encampments week to week and I feel that’s probably from the constant presence and the constant pressure from the encampment response team working together.”
In a City press release, Darroch added the street medicine outreach project “has had a huge impact. Our role within the encampment response is to keep everyone safe. When we can help connect more people to the health and wellness services they need, combined with the housing supports, it goes a long way in getting folks into a safe environment and off the streets.”
On April 18, city council approved up to $500,000 a year for 2023-26 and $250,000 in one-time funding to support the strategy.
27-26
Give credit where credit is due!
The encampment strategy was really smart and has functioned admirably. Police presently need to enforce the current regulations that are set up as of now to end the loitering around businesses at all hours. That ought to be the subsequent stage. There is no need of fences when laws are enforced.