Hamilton council defers vote on banning encampments in parks to next year

Hamilton city council has decided to defer a vote on banning tent encampments from all public parks as the city adds new spaces to its shelters.

At a meeting on Wednesday of the city's general issue committee, council voted to defer a motion "to prohibit overnight camping (tent encampments) in all City of Hamilton parks once a total of 192 additional shelter spaces are available through the previously approved expanded shelter capacity and outdoor shelter site."

Council recently approved 192 new temporary shelter beds and an 80-person temporary outdoor shelter, to be located at Barton and Tiffany streets on land once set aside for a stadium and later film studios that were never constructed.

Shortly after, council voted to ban encampments at parks within a one-kilometre radius of the new beds, once they were completed.

Council was scheduled to vote on a motion that would extend that ban to cover all public parks, but Mayor Andrea Horwath motioned to defer the vote to the first quarter of next year, when a staff report on the issue is expected to come back, to avoid any legal complications.

"It may not be fast enough," Howath told council, as she motioned to defer. "But we have to do things in a way that are protecting the interests of everybody in our city — people who are unhoused, people who are housed."

Last year, the city implemented an encampment protocol that allowed unhoused people to live at least 10 metres away from private property, 50 metres away from park amenities, and 100 metres away from schools, daycares and playgrounds.

Coun. Esther Pauls introduced the motion to ban encampments from parks back in August, saying then that she'd heard complaints from a constituent about tents too close to her house.

Coun. Tom Jackson was one of three councillors to vote against the deferral, saying the city would soon be providing enough shelter beds for people living in tents, and his constituents wanted their parks back.

"My community is looking for an end date," Jackson said of the city's encampment protocol. 

"The anger reached a pinnacle the last few months," he said. "It's not going away."

The city received three letters from people in the community ahead of Wednesday's meeting, complaining that tents near their house were making them feel unsafe, and they wanted the city to remove encampments from parks.

The city received several more letters asking councillors to reject Pauls' motion, and heard from nine delegates who all said the city needed to ensure there were enough shelter beds if it was going to ban encampments.

But Deputy Mayor Brad Clark cautioned against rushing the vote in light of potential rights violations. A recent court decision out of Waterloo found municipalities can't evict people from encampments if they cannot provide an adequate amount of emergency shelter space.