A haven for the homeless
A few campsites at Beavermead Campground have been set aside to help fill need for the city’s homeless
A portion of the city-owned Beavermead Campground has been temporarily set aside for homeless people.
Five of the campground’s 18 non-serviced campsites – meant for tents, as opposed to recreational vehicles – are serving as campsites for the homeless.
The city reserved the campsites about 10 days ago. On Thursday, there were several tents set up and about five people camping there.
Peterborough has seen an acute shortage of apartments available for rent this spring and summer.
The vacancy rate for a one-bedroom apartment is around 1.3 per cent this summer - down from 5.8 per cent three years ago.
The situation is so dire that the Warming Room, an emergency shelter meant to stay open only in winter, was open until the end of June.
Linda Mitchelson, the city’s social services director, said it’s the first time in her nine years working for the city that a temporary campground has been set up for the homeless.
Some of the campers have a shelter allowance through social assistance to help defray camping costs, Mitchelson said.
If not, she said the city has a budget to help homeless people – and that will help pay for the sites.
“It will be determined on a caseby-case basis,” she said.
Beavermead is a large campground off Ashburnham Dr., on Little Lake. It’s very popular with people who travel in RVs, as well as tent campers. It’s owned by the city and run by Otonabee Region Conservation Authority.
Denyse Landry, manager of corporate services for Otonabee Conservation, said this is a first for the campground.
“This has never happened before – and we’re happy to work with the city on this,” she said. “It seems to be working. I haven’t heard any complaints.”
Landry said the arrangement with the city is expected to continue for as long as it’s needed, during camping season.
On Thursday, there were five people camping on the sites. Nobody wished to be interviewed for this story.
Bruce Flemons, a supervisor at Beavermead, said he’s been allowing some of the homeless campers to use the Wi-Fi at the park office to look up apartment listings online.
He’d never deny them: “They’re looking for a place to live.”