Inside Happy Valley-Goose Bay's struggle with a growing transient population

As the homeless and transient population in a central Labrador town grows, so too do the calls for increased policing and better services.

Residents of Happy Valley-Goose Bay have been raising their voices about people living on the community's bike trails. About 80 people held a rally Friday to call for increased policing and better social services. 

In 2017, an estimated 25 people were living on the trails system. Today, the mayor estimates it to be 80. 

Jim Saunders, 24, is one of them.

"A lot of people wanna drink, so they come here to Goose Bay to drink," Saunders told CBC News. "I usually come up here to hang out with my friends, have a little drink." 

Saunders was raised in the Sheshatshiu Innu First Nation and now lives at the Housing Hub shelter, run by the Nunatsiavut government. When there aren't any beds, Saunders sleeps on the trails. It's cold, he said, but after five years he's used to it.

"The people of Goose Bay, they don't like us,'' Saunders said. "Because some people do vandalism and violence causing trouble.… I don't cause any trouble. I just love to drink and hang with my friends, have a good laugh."

Saunders would like to see a bigger shelter, though, as there are dozens of people in need of beds for the night but only 12 beds at the Housing Hub. The Labrador Inn has been used as an overflow for-profit shelter. 

For Richard Myers, it's a different story. The Happy Valley-Goose Bay man said he's trying to get housing and back on his feet after having a hard time so he can be there for his daughter. 

"There's actually very few people who want to get better, honestly. But there's a couple of us here who actually need housing, have kids, have all these things to worry about and we're just put off," Myers said. 

Myers said some people at the shelter have homes but simply choose to be at the shelter, and it's causing people without homes, like him, to have to sleep on the streets.

"Half of them don't want to get out of it, but the people who do, we're struggling and we just need to be taken seriously. We need to be looked at as if we're actual people, not just for lack of a better term, bush people," Myers said. "I really hope things change."

There needs to be a bigger, better facility to help the situation with more rooms, doors that lock, a nurse on hand and more outreach programming, he said. 

"What else is there to do around here?" Myers said. "There's no mall, there's no arcade, there's nothing to go to. You got [the] bush and you got drinks and what else?"