'This is not my downtown Winnipeg': frustration grows with drug use, people living in bus shacks

Shattered glass, garbage and a needle litter a dilapidated downtown bus shack on Portage Avenue.

Nearby, beside the now shuttered Hudson's Bay store, someone is lying on a bench inside a bus shelter while Winnipeg Transit riders wait outside.

"This is not my downtown Winnipeg," said Kathleen Gibbons, 73, who is fed up seeing this sight every day.

"I see a great change for the worst. I think the homelessness has increased, they are far more visible. Damaged buildings — you know, I've seen lots of buildings that have cardboard or wood on the windows because they've been smashed."

Gibbons has lived downtown for 14 years and grew up coming to the area as a kid to shop at Eaton's department store, which was demolished in 2003.

The retired social worker, who worked with the homeless, says she doesn't feel safe waiting inside a bus shack for Winnipeg Transit.

"I'm not going to go in there when they're passing the bottle around or the joint or whatever — the meth pipe," she said.

People have been loitering or living in bus shelters in Winnipeg now for years and the problem, exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, doesn't seem to be going away.

"We're managing a crisis right now," said Jason Whitford, CEO of End Homelessness Winnipeg.

"We need resources — daytime resources — where our relatives on the streets can go, whether they want to go back to school, whether they want to get a counselling session, whether they want to access health care."

With the closure of many public spaces during the pandemic, Whitford says, homelessness became more visible and is still present due to the number of businesses that have closed.

He pointed to housing as a possible solution.

"We have a housing shortage in our city. Low-income housing is needed. Low-income, dignified, safe housing is needed throughout our city."

One long-time downtown resident says he decided to leave the area in June after living there for  22 years.