'The community is very concerned': city, social organizations collaborate on homelessness in Thunder Bay

The City of Thunder Bay and a growing group of social service organizations are continuing to work toward a formal protocol to support people experiencing homelessness in the city.

In a memo tabled by Thunder Bay Mayor Bill Mauro on Monday's council meeting — which was discussed by councillors for about an hour — Mauro said so far, nearly 20 organizations have signed on to be part of the process of developing the protocol, which would outline the roles and responsibilities of each agency to assist in responding to homeless encampments in Thunder Bay.

"The memo comes from work that started about six weeks ago," Mauro said. "You know, I went with [Coun. Albert Aiello] to the location at County Fair Plaza in the north ward."

Mauro said the County Fair Plaza encampment, which saw people experiencing homelessness sheltering under the canopy of a former gas bar, led members of the public to question what the city can do, and is doing, to address the issue.

"There's great concern," Mauro said. "There are issues that they witness, and it's not just about the one location."

"This is occurring in many parts of the city," he said. "It's unfortunately occurring in probably all cities, if not all, then most cities right across the country. And so there's concerns with some of what they're witnessing, safety issues, public health issues and the list goes on."

Safety concerns were highlighted recently when a truck was driven through a tent at the County Fair Plaza encampment. Nobody was in the tent at the time, and the driver of the truck was charged.

The solution is a complicated matter, however, one that would involve input and support from not only the municipality and the many organizations in the city that have been working on homelessness and related issues, but also the provincial and federal governments.

Judith Monteith-Farrell, NDP MPP for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, said the province needs to do more to address homelessness.

"The encampment situation is horrible," she said. "What I do often is I go out, and I talk to people who are on the streets to get their perspective because sometimes that's the missing piece. And they, often, say things would be different if they could afford a place to live."

"And then we're dealing with ... the crisis we have in addictions and the lack of resources around that, which makes it difficult to house some people," Monteith-Farrell said.

She added that the province stopped homeless counts in 2018, which makes it difficult to gauge the severity of the situation in places like Thunder Bay.

"We guess at it," she said. "We have the informal count. But people come and go from this region."

"We have people passing through Thunder Bay," Monteith-Farrell said. "And then we have people who are under-housed ... where people describe where they're living as being so substandard, but no money to fix them up and also no ability to move anywhere else because there are just isn't any place that they can afford."