Encampment stats improving but the problem is far from solved
By Lethbridge Herald on June 21, 2025.
Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald
Negative perceptions of encampments by members of the public has dropped substantially from 2022, according to a report submitted to  the Safety and Social Standing Policy Committee of Lethbridge city  council on Thursday.
But those perceptions still exist as the SPC heard from a resident and  business operator following a multi-pronged presentation by several  members of the encampment response team on the cityâs encampment  response strategy.
The SPC consists of councillors Mark Campbell, Rajko Dodic, John  Middleton-Hope and Ryan Parker. After a long discussion, the SPC voted unanimously to recommend that council approve a recommended adjustment  in encampment strategy updates from bi-monthly to quarterly.
A report submitted to the SPC by Community Social Development general  manager Andrew Malcolm showed that the negative sentiment towards encampments dropped to 20.1 per cent in 2024 from 70.4 per cent in 2022 while positive sentiment rose to 45.3 per cent last year from 2.8  per cent in 2022, âreflecting growing community confidence in the Cityâs balanced and compassionate approach,â says the report.
The 2024 Point in Time count showed homelessness has increased 15 per  cent since 2022 which is a drop in the average annual growth rate  which was 19.5 per cent from 2018 to 2022. Between 2022-24 the  increase was down to 7.1 per cent annually.
A presentation showed that on the night of Oct. 8, 2024, at least 522 people were experiencing homelessness here. Of those 92 were in an emergency shelter, 274 were unsheltered, 65 were in transitional  housing and 82 were in institutional settings.
Downtown resident Barry Ewing told council about what he has witnessed  for years and stated bluntly the strategy isnât a success but rather a failure. He said the streets are where people conduct their illegal  business and because the shelter has room for more people, he believes there is no excuse for anyone to be on the streets. He also submitted a lengthy document which can be found on the meetingâs agenda at https://agendas.lethbridge.ca/AgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=4472&doctype=1
Middleton-Hope said he doesnât believe the situation is a housing issue but rather a criminal issue, stating the shelter at this time of year more often than not has only 50 per cent capacity.
A representative of Lealta Building Supplies told the SPC he has seen a drastic increase in encampments in the last couple of years and a decrease in customer traffic. He stated that after theyâre moved, homeless people often hide around a corner and return at 7 p.m.
âItâs a revolving door,â he said.
Robin James of Lethbridge Housing Association said the organization has done its best to expand the shelter and make sure space exists for people in a safe environment. She stated more local political will is needed to address homelessness, noting the issue is about transitioning people through a housing continuum.
James said the emergency response team has done a great job of making sure encampments arenât entrenched by the shelter. The team is at the shelter once or twice a week, cleaning up as much as 1,000 kg of garbage weekly, which is twice as much as data shows was being picked up in 2023, James said.
âWe did our best to expand that shelter and get that shelter prepared so that there was no question that there was room for people in a safe environmentâ with heat, air conditioning, bathrooms, running water and an outdoor faucet, James said.
Steps are being taken to open a 90-unit motel with 30 units available, with the encampment team bringing forward names for possible residency.
âBut if thereâs no reason for people to leave their encampment, if itâs simply cleanup once a week,â what is being accomplished, asked  James.
âAt some point we need some political will,â said James noting LHA is currently building more units than it has in a long time.
âWe are doing our best, weâre lobbying the provincial government to  assist us but we need political will from this municipality to take this to the next step.â
Efforts to help the homeless arenât about cleaning up garbage once a week and re-setting up tents, said James, but rather about getting people the help they need. She added that stolen property needs to be removed from individuals possessing it, taking away their ability to continue living in an encampment and forcing their hand on getting them into a stable shelter so they can receive needed services.
Lethbridge Police Sergeant Ryan Darroch of the Downtown Policing Unit said the upcoming opening of the transitional housing unit on Stafford Drive North by the LHA is a good option, adding heâs proud of the direction the strategy is moving in.
âOur encampment strategy is top-notch,â said Darroch, who adding the City is doing a bit better than Edmonton but not as well as Calgary on dealing with homelessness.
He said removal of property while taking down an encampment is an âofficer pressure pointâ with the main message of the strategy being compliance and not âto leave so much of a scar on the Earth when theyâre gone, especially in the river valley.â
Councillor Belinda Crowson told the SPC of concerns sheâs heard from businesses along 2 A Avenue North with bio-waste, loitering and other issues.
Andrew Malcolm, general manager of community social development, said the strategy is solving problems but not all of them. He added initiatives by the YWCA, LHA and other organizations will help to alleviate homelessness, and that all efforts are having an impact.
Since the Cityâs encampment strategy was approved in 2023, more than 85,000 kilograms of debris have been removed and 2,200 camp-related sites triaged. In the first three months of 2025, 435 structures and 29,020 kilograms of debris were removed. This compares to 569 structures in all of 2024 and 44,900 kg of debris cleaned up.
Bringing outreach services in-house has resulted in a 263 per cent increase in intakes and 318 per cent increase in referrals, says the report.
Between August of 2024 and April of this year, 19 people moved on from homelessness compared to zero in 2023.
Between January and March of this year, 151 complaints were received about encampments. In 2024, there were 925 for the year and 455 in 2023, data from that year including only the months of July through December which reflects when the strategy became operational.
In the first three months of this year, there was a total of 520 confirmed encampments with 322 total number of sites triaged. That figure refers to the total number of encampment and debris complaints responded to by the emergency response team. The figure for all of 2024 was 738 encampments and 1,261 triaged sites.
Total complaints to the Cityâs 311 number from 2023 through March of this year total 2,938, with 310 in the first three months of this year.
Encampments are broken down into three tiers: Tier 1 are small, low-risk camps with minimal impact while Tier 2 are moderate-sized ones with increasing safety or environmental concerns while Tier 3 consists of large entrenched encampments with significant health or public safety risks.
ERT members and outreach staff last year are trained to carry and administer naxolone, which has been deployed multiple times, says the report.
The response efforts have seen a 27.7 per cent reduction in outdoor fire incidents between 2023 and 2024, due in part to the ERT working with the Lethbridge Fire Emergency Services to remove hazardous  materials and engaging in other strategies including fire safety education for camp occupants and co-ordination with fire prevention officers to assess and address high-risk sites.
The ERT has also removed weapons from encampments.
The report notes the City has achieved success aligning its response efforts with broader housing and community well-being goals, citing a key driver of that progress being the hiring of a dedicated housing solutions co-ordinator whose job is funded through the encampment response.
The report says that several trends are expected this year, including that the number of Tier 2 and 3 encampments will increase and that there will be a seasonal dispersal into the river valley and less accessible ares which will require enhanced surveillance and mobility tools. Seasonal shifts require tools such as drones and boats to reach hard-to-access camps, says the report with the police to also use mountain bikes as needed.
The report also states that there has been an increase in people  accessing services that support them in leaving homeless as they have  become more familiar with the Cityâs outreach program.
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The strategy was working, and the Outreach Team has been diligent, working hard along side Sgt. Darroch and his team, but there are only so many members, and as soon as multi-agency removal and clean up teams are believed to be no longer in the area, then the same people return. There were no plans to stop them from returning, so that is why it failed.
It became evident at the meeting that management, not the foot soldiers, were passing the buck as well! I applaud some of the committee members for bringing more concerns of other business owners in the area and for asking tough questions! Questions in some cases where leadership became offended it appeared.
Clearly there are gaps that needed to be addressed in the plans, but once again, it appears there are some in administration who are complacent and state ” it is happening everywhere ” . . . well Lethbridge had a handle on it and we had some success in the beginning of 2024! That attitude is what has led to the mess around the shelter and surrounding area!
There is a reduction in complaints because believe no one is listening, as we saw in the small number of people who showed up at the last LPS info session at the multiculural center earlier this year!
In January the update stated ” . . . saw a 195 per cent increase in encampments compared to the same period in 2023. . . .”
Now if this was a corporation, the board of that corporation would have did some research into why and deployed measures to reduce those numbers!
Apparently the complacency of leadership ignored them and that is why we have a massive mess in the shelter area!
The taxpayers are on the hook for all these mistakes! The businesses that are impacted are barely hanging on and some have decided to sue!
Some LPS members have been run ragged, overseeing too many tasks and that impacts the quality of the tasks and it isn’t fair!
It is not fair to the whole Outreach team to go in, move people along, just to watch them return hours later . . . it is a morale killer!
That team, including LPS Sgt Darroch and his DTU, and Robyn James of the Lethbridge Housing Authority has worked tirelessly to prevent such an occurrence and it just isn’t fair they didn’t have the resources or backing of some leadership to make this plan successful. It can be if implemented properly.
The shelter has the capacity, housing is available and the taxpayer and businesses have had enough!
Here is just one plan to consider:
Notify people in encampments there will be zero tolerance for sleeping rough or encamping illegally coming in force in 2 weeks, setting a date and therefore setting parameters, and they should decide where they will go: shelter, housing, their family home, and even back to their own communities where many arrive from each year. Re-enforce the fact that they will not be allowed to sleep rough or set up an encampment anywhere in the city!
Once moved and cleaned, barricade those areas with signs no trespassing, no loitering, no encamping or you will be prosecuted.
To enforce this, have security patrols 24/7 preventing anyone from breaching those areas since we do not have enough LPS or Outreach Team members. The security is not there to make arrests, but to ask people to move on and if they donât, LPS would be called!
There should be no need to increase Outreach members and all agencies and departments should practise âwork smarterâ policies!
At the same time, someone needs to confirm those people have a plan before the 2 week deadline, and monitor the people to make sure they are not moving to some obscure, out of sight place: abandoned buildings, coulees, etc.
We have all the resources we need now in LPS and Outreach, but we just have to work smarter and both city administrators and LPS must allow the frontline to do their jobs without binding them!
Will there be encampments after? Of course, but with less, they will be easier to manage!
We need leaders who have the will and are not afraid to make the right decisions!
The upcoming Police Commission meeting should be interesting since the buck was passed to LPS at this SPC meeting!
You are being too kind! As a business owner who has weekly discussions with fellow owners, we believe the city doesn’t care about the business owners loss of revenues and even failures because of the tents, piles of feces, urine puddles by doorways, and ignore us when we complain, but if you are one of the hoodlums who are in the city just because they can get away with all the crime, and the city has given them more rights than the people who work and pay taxes then it is time to wake up Council and the police and let them know who are the people paying their wages and electing them.
I am mad as hell and so are other owners! I feel for those next to the shelter, and it appears that the city wants to kill their business so they can take it over for expansion of the regional shelter plans, which will provide more services and attract more people!
It reminds me of the Supervised Drug Consumption Site we had! How did that work out for the previous Council! We fired most of them but were left with city beaurocrats who road-blocked many efforts to regain our city and our downtown! That deadwood needs to retired if there is any hope! Not much hope left for many, but a lawsuit will wake up city hall!
Having attended the latest SPC meeting on Thursday (briefly) it was evident that the root of the unhoused issue is not being adequately and consistently addressed, that being the illegality of encampments. I fully agree with Councillor Middleton/Hope about addressing the criminal aspect. It is NOT about pouring in more money and hiring more âworkersâ to babysit the encampments. There are tactics that could be deployed like simply flooding encampment areas breaking up the concentration of the tents/structures. Those providing tents etc. should be discouraged and stoped, this is NOT helping those, rather contributing and enabling them. Police need to take a more agressive stance and arrest, issuing tickets and/or warnings are useless.