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OTTAWA — Advocates are welcoming news that the federal government plans to end homelessness within 10 years — a crisis they say has been decades in the making.
This week’s federal budget estimated about 65,000 Canadians are homeless, but Tim Richter of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness thinks the true figure could be much higher.
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Richter says the current housing crisis stems from the 1990s, when the federal government stopped funding social housing.
He said the problem has exploded since 2018 because of higher rents, a higher cost of living and a toxic drug crisis, adding to increases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government has pledged $11.2 million over the next four years to address homelessness, including money for transitional and permanent housing and integrated social supports for things like mental health and addiction.
Richter says he hopes the 10-year federal plan will finally rally provinces and cities to tackle what the government has called “one of Canada’s most urgent social challenges.”
Homeless encampments have been shut down in both Saskatoon and Regina over the past few weeks.
A camp in Regina at Core Community Park was shuttered on Oct. 27 by Regina fire chief Layne Jackson called an “imminent” fire risk after several blazes at the encampment the weekend before, one of which sent someone to hospital.
“What we can confirm is a pattern of folks bringing open flame devices and open fires into their tents, along with compressed gases such as propane, which creates a very, very dangerous and imminent situation,” Jackson said.
In Saskatoon, a homeless encampment on 20th Street and Avenue K South was dismantled by the city on Oct. 8 after saying that encampments pose safety risks to those who live in them, and raise concerns about sanitation, gang activity, drug use as the sites grow.
Yvonne Raymer, Saskatoon’s deputy fire chief, said the fire department had responded to four fires at other encampments in the city the same week.
She said one fire destroyed a tent and spread to nearby trees in Optimist Park, another spread to brush and trees in the same park six hours later, and a third fire in the backyard of a vacant property destroyed a makeshift shelter. The next night a fire got out of control in a park off Idylwyld Drive.
Business near a large homeless encampment south of Prince Albert are also calling for its removal.
— with files by 980CJME’s Geoff Smith and 650CKOM’s Libby Gray
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