Regina business owner fears camp residents will return

There’s relief and lingering irritation from an 11th Avenue business owner who operates across the street from a tent encampment that was torn down.

Ron Fellinger’s butcher shop J. Fellinger & Sons Meats, has operated in the Heritage neighbourhood for 67 years.

“It’s so frustrating, though,” he said. “I’ve been in this business for 58 years, and this is the most challenging situation we’ve ever had.”

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The tent encampment was decommissioned at Core Community Park, formerly known as Pepsi Park, on Tuesday.

Regina Fire Chief Layne Jackson said crews took down the encampment after multiple fires threatened the lives of the people who are living in tents.

Fellinger previously told 980 CJME he lost a quarter of his business since the tent encampment emerged.

“So many people have phoned up and told us that we’d like to come down and shop here,” he said. “We just don’t feel comfortable being anywhere close to something like this.”

Fellinger said he voiced his opposition to the encampment to city leaders but felt it fell on “deaf ears.”

“I can talk until doomsday, but nobody will do anything about it,” he said. “They don’t feel for the people that live around here or the businesses.”

A yellow fence blocking access to the Core Community Park sits next to Fellinger’s business. (Gillian Massie/ 980 CJME)

Skid steers continued to scrape up tents and belongings from people who left them behind on Thursday.

When the yellow fence surrounding the city park comes down, Fellinger said he’s concerned people will return.

“It’s just going to get worse every year that it continues like this,” he said.

Mayor Chad Bachynski said the jurisdiction for issues like mental health, addictions, social services and health care falls under provincial portfolios.

“I would say there hasn’t been the space available to navigate people out of that encampment,” he said. “We had 60-plus people who are now going to be displaced into the community, who need a place to go, who wanted a place to go.”

Bachynski said he is working with the provincial government to address shelter capacity issues and add more points of entry to get people into housing.

“We don’t have somewhere for them to go; that’s as far as we have the resources to provide,” he said. “So you know it is frustrating that we don’t have that currently. I will continue to push that we need that urgently. We need it now.”