Homeless advocates hope mental-health supports are included in proposed public hoarding bylaw

Hoarding objects in public spaces such as transit shelters might be against the city of Winnipeg's bylaws in the future.

If so, organizations that help people experiencing homelessness and hoarding disorder say supports have to be in place to help rather than hurt.

"It's not about going in and cleaning out encampments and taking people's stuff. It's about actually working with people to sort stuff out," said Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, an organization that helps connect people with housing, mental-health and addictions resources. 

"It's not the encampment living that's the problem. It's the amount of stuff that is accumulated and that just becomes … a fire hazard," she said.

Next Friday, the city's East-Kildonan Transcona committee will discuss a motion that suggests city crews can enforce restrictions on hoarding in public areas such as encampments and bus shelters to prevent fire hazards.

Coun. Shawn Nason (Transcona), author of the motion and chair of the community committee, says he's been discussing this idea with Willis.

"My intent is to work collaboratively with organizations that are doing that legwork on the street to try to effect positive change on our homeless situation," he said.

Though city crews already have the power to clean up encampments, Nason says this would allow crews to be more proactive. He called existing enforcement "lax at times, and only after incidents occur."

Nason says there are a few transit shelters in his ward where items are piling up, and where some people have been living. He says he's fielding residents' complaints.

"People are being displaced from using transit shelters for what their intended purpose is, not for intoxication; not for discarded needles and public defecation. These are many of the things that they're seeing in the shelters."

Nason says the goal of the motion is to bring advocates to city hall who can help people living in shelters and encampments find resources such as addictions services or housing.

"The belongings are generally collections of whatever they've scrounged or scraped. Most of it holds little to no value," Nason said. "So it's finding out what their key items are if they're being relocated to temporary housing."

Helping hoarders important, advocates say

However, people who help others with hoarding disorder warn against simply removing objects if the person is truly experiencing a mental illness.

"A forced cleanup is definitely not ideal," said Stacey Miller, manager of community services for A&O Support Services for Older Adults. The organization has a handful of programs that help seniors deal with hoarding.

She says  if someone is truly experiencing a hoarding disorder, throwing away even a small number of their items would only make things worse.

"Our social workers provide support to clients to look at why they're keeping those items — how could we see these items differently?" she said.

"We do some different activities with them to test theories. Like, if I was to remove this item, how stressful do you think you would be from one to 10? We kind of build that up with them. So to have everything removed drastically would be quite a significant stress for that individual."

Miller says her program can run about 15 weeks, and many focus on making sure the person has a sense of control over what's happening. She suggests city staff look into including mental-health supports with the enforcement aspect. 

Willis says piles of items across Winnipeg are simply things that have been left behind by past encampments. But others, she says, are the result of hoarding disorder, and that is preventing some from getting the help they need.

"There is a senior over here who has been staying in a transit shelter all winter. We've found several different housing opportunities and he really wants to be housed," she said.

"When he's just about to sign the dotted line, he's like 'what am I going to do with my stuff?'"

Willis says she hopes the city will build infrastructure into this enforcement idea. She suggests a warehouse of some kind where people could store their items temporarily while they get moved into housing.