Calls for more compassion at Thunder Bay's homeless encampments as city seeks support

Wayne Greer says he's been living in a tent in Thunder Bay, Ont., for four months, and getting into housing would mark a "new beginning."

He's one of about 1,300 people on the Thunder Bay district's housing wait list, and hopes to get a hotel voucher so he has somewhere warm to stay this winter while he waits for a unit to become available.

Greer is staying in an encampment, and said people often ridicule those who live there.

"We've had [community] members drive by our camps, throw eggs at us, call us bums 'cause we're poor," Greer said. "If you put them in our situation … they could realize how we feel, right?"

CBC News met Greer at People Advocating for Change Through Empowerment (PACE), which runs a drop-in centre on the city's south side. There, he can get food, play pool, and connect with others who are in similar situations.

The city has taken a human rights-based approach to the encampments, working with support workers who provide food, water, tents and other resources to the unhoused population. 

This week, city council voted in favour of keeping existing guidelines around where encampments can be located. The debate revolved around whether they should be five or 10 metres from "any trail, sidewalk, or parking lot, or on or under any bridge, including pedestrian access points to such areas and structures." The five-metre guideline has been maintained.

The Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) says there were at least 1,400 encampments in the province last year. Earlier this month, Ontario's Big City Mayors – of which Thunder Bay is a part – launched its "Solve the Crisis" campaign to demand the provincial government to do more to address the homelessness and addictions crisis.

While Thunder Bay's housing advocates continue to seek more funding for transitional and supportive units, those with lived experience of homelessness say any approach must be led with compassion.

Rilee Willianen, policy and research analyst and acting drug strategy lead with the City of Thunder Bay, said staff found that pushing the encampments further back would have a detrimental impact.

"When you continue to reduce the amount of space that people can stay at, you're going to put them into more open spaces, more green spaces, and a lot of those spaces are in residential areas," Willianen said.

"Alternatively, people will go into more bushy or wooded areas, which complicates emergency services access, and in both of those situations, what might happen is people get pushed away from the supports and services that they need."

When a report is received about a non-compliant encampment, Willianen said community organizations who have built trust with the unsheltered population work with them to do a planned relocation.

"We are actually having really great success with the enforcement of the guidelines just from a voluntary approach, a relationship-based approach," she said.