City hall homeless camp grows to about 60 tents
Residents say site offers safety, community and a place to connect
The man didn't give his name. When asked, he shrugged and shook his head.
Instead, he walked up to the food, water, and information station at the homeless camp at city hall to tell organizers he wanted to help out and could run trash out to the dump. Wearing tan coveralls, he moved quickly around the camp before heading to his truck to tie down the collected garbage.
“Living in filth is God damn disgusting and it's a disgrace the city isn't doing anything to help out by providing dumpsters or recycling,” the man said Wednesday.
“I was living rough during my time while I was still in the Canadian Armed Forces and no one should have to live like that, especially civilians.”
As he got in his truck, he was asked about what he thought about the camp, and what it means to see it in his home city.
“It sucks. What else do you want me to say? Talk to these actual people, they're the ones you should be listening to,” he said before leaving.
The camp has grown since it first popped up three weeks ago on the plaza in front of city hall. It started as a table and one tent where meals and drinks were served to people in need, including those staying in or near the YWCA. As many as 60 tents sprawl through the space, though getting exact numbers can be difficult.
In an emailed statement, the City of Regina said it has weekly contact with organizers and will include “additional garbage collection on the courtyard (and) washroom access in city hall during regular business hours.”
One volunteer, Alejandra Cabrera, put the number of people staying at the camp somewhere around 100 on some nights.
The City of Regina said “frequent point-in-time counts of individuals on site … have fluctuated between 15 and 46.”
Kayla (Pynk) Mitton is one of them.
She's been at the camp since it started weeks ago, first staying right underneath a statue of Confucius. Mitton said before the camp, she was staying at a campsite or used a space at an Impark Parking Lot to use the outlet to primarily power a flat-top grill. The camp offers community, a degree of security and the ability to connect with people and services.
“It is beneficial because we don't always have to pack up our stuff and move, and get harassed and potentially charged. A lot of us are working on staying out of jail and smartening up our lives,” said Mitton.
Cabrera used to do street outreach work in the city's downtown core. She's not doing that work anymore but volunteered previously at Camp Hope and has been a part of the city hall camp since it started as a barbecue and protest of a failed motion to fund homelessness as part of the municipal budget.
“I love my community, simple as that,” she said in response to what brings her out to volunteer.
During her time working with the Community Support Team, Cabrera said she got to know many of the people who live at the camp now — she learned people's names, their stories and developed friendships.
While the direct action on display offers chances for heartening moments, Cabrera said ultimately it shouldn't be up to volunteers relying on donations to run a space like the camp.
“These are citizens,” said Cabrera. “Some people are one paycheque, two paycheques from being homeless.”
During the day, groups of social workers looking for clients and other such people come by the camp, check in with volunteers and then search for people in need of help. The camp has, in a way, centralized many of their clients.
“Having the camp here, mental health can find us. Social services can find us. Community outreach and support can find us. APSS, the needle van, they can find us,” said Mitton.
“Here, people can continue to do their addictions but be in a safe place where we do wellness checks and if someone is overdosing we tend them immediately. We haven't had any fatalities here, thank goodness. Some have come close.”
Cabrera said there are 30-minute wellness checks conducted around the camp at city hall. It's a measure that has proved necessary.
“The matter of fact is people are using and we want to be safe about it. We have EMS come by,” they said.
For people down at camp it's not an uncommon sight to see people pull up along Mcintyre or Smith streets, walk to the information area and hand over money, or clothes, food, cheques, blankets, water or other supplies.
Rev. Sarah Dymund and Emmett Brown from the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church dropped off socks and clothing for the members of camp on Wednesday. Fresh socks are always a top item for people experiencing homelessness, according to Mitton and Dymund.
The church offers a free lunch program every day from Monday to Friday, and part of that commitment to help their community motivates the pair to support the camp at city hall.
“Our need, we've seen it has been growing,” says Dymund of the church's lunch program. “We know this is where the need is so we brought it here.”
Asked what it means for her to see the donations, Mitton said “it shows there's so many good-hearted people out there. There are still angels.”
Kale Maclellan, who helped organize the camp and the preceding event, said there has to be an end to the camp, but what that looks like is still undetermined.
“Ideally, everyone gets a home,” she said.
Maclellan said now that the camp and organizers have got their bearings, they've been better able to co-ordinate with community-based organizations and agencies.
“We're working to connect people,” she said, in addition to offering de-escalation training and how to administer narcan or naloxone and food.
“We're doing what we can right now to make sure that people, people in our community, don't die, so they wake up tomorrow,” said Maclellan.
Both Maclellan and Cabrera say housing for everyone, supportive and wraparound care, those are the pinnacles, or ideal situations for what the camp brings about. But both organizers know they might be waiting a long time for those goals to be met.
“What we want to see is that there are options,” said Cabrera. “We don't want anyone to be on the streets when it's — 40 C out. There needs to be more capacity at low-barrier shelters.”
Since the camp started, police have been made aware of seven incidents ranging from reports of an injured man on June 26, fights a few days later that resulted in one man being charged and an overdose that sent a man to hospital Tuesday.
In an emailed statement, a Regina Police Service spokesperson said “police are attending daily in a proactive measure, as well as responding to calls for service.”
As for the seven incidents, the spokesperson said those were the only results they could find after an “extensive search” of calls pertaining to the camp, though some could have been missed due to human error.
The City of Regina is funding, with help from the province, a low-barrier, 40-bed shelter a block south of city hall. Since the shelter opened its doors, it has been full.
Six flag poles stand in front of Regina's city hall along the north side of Victoria Avenue. Between two of the poles holding the Treaty 4 flag and the City of Regina flag, a banner reads “make poverty history.”