Camping trailers offered for homeless

A man who sells recreational vehicles dropped by Emmanuel United Church on Tuesday to offer free RVs to homeless campers — but there were no takers, because there’s no place to legally camp in the city.

Jason Leblanc, the owner of Leblanc’s RV in Omemee, said he has used camping trailers he’d like to donate to the homeless.

How many trailers could he spare?

“As many as you want, I guess,” he said.

Leblanc drove to the church on Tuesday to make the offer as about a dozen homeless

campers were dismantling their tents on the church property.

They’d previously occupied the tent city at nearby Victoria Park, which had 45 tents this summer after the Warming Room shelter closed for repairs July 1.

Faced with an eviction notice from Peterborough County — which owns the park — 20 tents were moved to the property at Emmanuel.

Clergy had consented to it, but in mid-September the campers were asked to vacate on Tuesday morning because it’s getting too cold to safely camp at night.

Leblanc thought maybe he could help: he says owners of RV campgrounds call him regularly to come pick up trailers that have been abandoned (often with the contents still inside).

He said trailers are typically abandoned by campers who can no longer use them due to advanced age or lack of money.

He takes them away to a part of his property that he calls the RV “graveyard” and there the camper sits neglected — even though it’s still usable.

“Why is it sitting in a graveyard when it could be used to make someone’s life better?” Leblanc asked.

But there’s no place in Peterborough to legally park an RV for the purposes of camping, so nobody could take him up on his offer.

Dan Hennessey, one of the homeless campers, said that’s too bad because many people could make use of an RV.

“It’s a Band-Aid solution, but this Band-Aid’s needed right now to stop the bleeding,” he said, meaning that people were dismantling their tents on Tuesday with no place to go.

Hennessey went to see whether Mayor Diane Therrien was in her office next door at city hall; she’d been by the previous day and said she’d follow up on Hennessey’s idea of allowing campers to use city-owned Beavermead campground now that seasonal camping is over.

But Therrien wasn’t in, early Tuesday afternoon.

It also wasn’t clear on Tuesday when the Warming Room — which is funded primarily by the city — will reopen this winter, and if so where.

The shelter had previously been in the lower level of Murray Street Baptist Church, where renovations were planned for this summer.

When asked via email whether the shelter would return there this winter, Rev. Brad Peters wrote back: “We are exploring options with the city right now.”

Therrien referred questions about the Warming Room to city staff members who weren’t available for comment.