Elise Stolte: Legal homeless camps are necessary in Edmonton. Here's why

Kenny Cardinal was packing up his stuff again Monday night — a broken tent, tarp with burn marks and several shopping carts worth of clothes, shattered lamps and bike parts.

The items were littered across the sidewalk around the corner from the Bissell Centre, where he had been camping for two weeks.

It was an eyesore. Police told him to move.
But he literally has nowhere to go. He’s going to pull shopping carts another few blocks, set up, and get kicked out again.

Two weeks ago, Homeward Trust told council there are 337 people sleeping in tents around Edmonton right now. Their names are on the list to get housing but there’s nothing available.
People say they should go to shelters.

There are already 284 people there. There isn’t room for 300 more.
Even if there was room, going to a shelter means leaving belongings behind to get stolen, splitting with a wife or girlfriend, and trying to sleep in a room packed with nearly two dozen sometimes angry and mentally unstable men.

Good luck. But we still tell them to pack up and move on. Some agencies hand them new tents.
Last weekend, there was a fire in Dawson Park, back in the hills where camps are hidden from authority but less than 500 metres from people’s houses.

No one was hurt this time, but the brush fire was big enough to be seen from across the river. It took nearly an hour to get under control, and fire crews reported a propane tank explosion, garbage on site and people fleeing the scene.

Coun. Scott McKeen called me so frustrated his voice was shaking. “People are going to die and calls for service are going through the roof. … I’m tired of telling residents of Riverdale that we’re on it. This is madness.”

This is the last straw for him; I don’t think we should wait for something worse.
 
Edmonton needs legal camping sites. We need safe, legal places for people to stay now, somewhere with washrooms, showers, privacy, basic kitchen facilities and a central place to warm up and access a social worker.

This shouldn’t be in the river valley, where it creates a fire hazard, forces people to camp far from emergency services and makes park users feel unsafe. It also shouldn’t be all in McCauley and the inner city. These homeless camps are currently spread across the city. Any legal camps need to stay a manageable size and be spread out.

McKeen says where ever these go, council needs to make a deal with neighbourhood residents that it’s temporary — something that gets phased out as Edmonton builds more supportive housing. He also wants to see more than a collection of tents.

He plans to talk with Edmonton’s Recover team, which is working with service agencies, inner-city residents and businesses to pilot new ways to build inner-city wellness. Trying different approaches to this in several locations could answer some questions.

Do we need trailers, like the oilsands camps? Should people pay a small fee to camp, and have the option to cover it through volunteering around the site?

Who can handle security in a way that doesn’t make people feel constantly hassled? Maybe Bissell Centre staff who call police when tensions grow?

This isn’t going to be easy.

I was a new reporter in the summer of 2007 when we had tent city. A collection of 60 tents grew when the Bissell Centre put port-a-potties and a washing station in the vacant field behind them.
I stayed overnight with a fellow reporter to see what it was like.

There were shouting matches, someone walked by with a hunting arrow. I saw a woman struggling to stand up after drinking Listerine. She said three men just tried to pull her pants down.

But better this is public. Let’s face it, deal with it.

Besides, there was also tenderness. The camp quieted by morning. Couples spoke quietly, supporting each other. A man left his wife to go to work.

In the United States, homeless advocates are battling in the courts to prevent cities from forcing people to move when there is no where else to go. Many cities are experimenting with alternatives — homeless villages where people have a small shelter, privacy and security so they can catch their breath. They form committees to set the rules.

Talking with campers in Edmonton this week, they’re keen to try this. Anything that stops police and security from forcing them to move on is welcome. It’s not the ultimate solution, but let’s try something.
estolte@postmedia.com
twitter.com/estolte