Pilot project would see regular garbage pickup at Winnipeg homeless camps
Proposed pilot project would target largest camps, run until October
Homeless encampments across Winnipeg could get regular garbage pickup this summer.
On Tuesday, city council's executive policy committee approved a pilot project to do regular cleanup at encampments.
A city report released last week estimated it could cost up to $4 million a year to do weekly pickup at the roughly 150 camps in Winnipeg, but Mayor Scott Gillingham says the project will focus on the city's largest camps.
"We need encampments cleaned up," he told reporters.
"The residents of Winnipeg need encampments cleaned up. The people who are living in the encampments right now, they need areas cleaned up for their own sake as well."
If approved by the rest of council, three Winnipeg organizations — Main Street Project, Siloam Mission and the Downtown Community Safety Partnership — will take the lead on the project.
The three organizations pitched the idea of the pilot. Social enterprises like the safety partnership's Clean Slate program and Siloam's MOST (Mission Off the Streets) program employ people who have lived experience with homelessness, which they say will help reduce conflict with camp residents.
There are significant environmental, health, life safety and fire hazard issues at all the encampments, chief administrative officer Michael Jack wrote in the city report.
At the same time, Jack wrote the city's approach to garbage collection must be "mindful," and preserve dignity, respect and compassion.
Camp residents may mistrust city staff, who might have trouble distinguishing between garbage and personal property, the report says.
But Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud, CEO of Siloam Mission, said camp residents can help, noting that crews have arrived at camps to find all the garbage already collected into bags and arranged for pickup.
"There is a keen, keen desire of the residents of encampments to have a clean space to live in … [and] to take care of the space that they're living," she said, speaking as a delegate to the committee.
Although some camps would need an intensive cleanup initially, subsequent cleanups would become easier as accumulated debris would be removed, Blaikie Whitecloud said.
'Trying to survive'
The project would use $170,000 of existing departmental funding and run until the end of October.
Garbage and debris in homeless encampments can cause safety hazards and become a source of complaints from area residents.
Jamil Mahmood, Main Street Project's executive director, hopes the pilot project will lead to a permanent program to do regular cleanups at camps.
"We know neighborhood residents want to see the areas cleaned," he said in an interview.
"We think that'll go a long way for, you know, goodwill and understanding, that [homeless] people are trying to survive, and this is the only place they can live."
He expects a project could be done for less than the $4 million city staff estimated.
"What we really need is the larger encampments — the places we know people are — they need a regular service, whereas smaller encampments often don't need anything, or they just need it when they move on."
Point Douglas Coun. Vivian Santos told the executive policy committee that cleaning up the camps could reduce pressure on emergency services.
"The needles, the [explosions] that are happening, if we did mindful cleanups and we cleaned this up on a consistent basis, you will see lesser calls for services to the Winnipeg fire paramedics and Winnipeg police," she told the committee.
Mayor wants needle cleanups in parks this summer
The committee also discussed a report on the feasibility of having city crews proactively cleanup needle debris, weapons and other hazardous materials in city parks.
Coun. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) raised a motion last month calling for the program, in response to concerns from inner-city daycares and other groups who use playgrounds and other city amenities where the hazardous materials are sometimes found.
The executive policy committee shortened the length of time city staff have to report back on the feasibility of the program, from 180 to 120 days, but Gillingham told reporters he wants to see work begin this summer, before the report comes back.
He said discussions with Gilroy and city staff are ongoing, and more details will be released soon.
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