Edmonton inner-city encampment cleared out amid ongoing court challenge
City says 5 people occupied the encampment Friday; eight structures taken down
Police, paramedics, cleanup crews and trucks arrived Friday morning to dismantle an encampment the City of Edmonton says is too high risk to stay in place.
The encampment, near 105th Avenue and 95th Street, is one of eight at the centre of a court battle over how police and the city handle the removal of camps built by people without homes.
The police have identified eight encampments in central Edmonton that they say are too high risk, and four of them will be removed during the next four days.
Police arrived at the site around 8:30 a.m. Joining them were paramedics, outreach workers, personnel dressed in white protective suits, a garbage truck and a tow truck. The tow truck was positioned to tow a camper van from the site.
After police woke residents, outreach workers offered them coffee and food.
People living at the site received a 48-hour notice on Tuesday that the city intended to dismantle the camp.
Among them was Kevin McArthur, who said he has lived there for about a year with his wife.
On Friday, his wife was in hospital, sick with pneumonia, and McArthur said he was recovering from an infection.
McArthur, who makes money by collecting bicycle parts, repairing and rebuilding them and selling them, had insulated his tent with styrofoam. He had shelving units lined with belongings inside and outside his tents, along with a generator he used to heat the tent and power a hotplate for food and drinks.
On Friday morning, he was loading some of his possessions into a cart, but he said he worried he was going to lose other items.
"A bunch of old bikes, and you get them for free and you fix them up. And you ride them around, or you get $40 bucks for that," he said in an interview. "And you take all that away, where's someone going to get the $40 bucks you need a day?"
Although McArthur said that garbage accumulated on the encampment site was a "huge issue," he said there are other ways to resolve that concern than displacing people.
McArthur said he is likely to return to the same site after the cleanup is complete. Although he has rented apartments, he says he is frequently evicted because the landlords don't like his friends, or the noise.
Jim Gurnett, a spokesperson for the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, was on-site Friday morning, Gurnett said it's a waste of public money to tear apart structures when people will ultimately rebuild temporary homes somewhere else.
"It's time for people to start witnessing what happens. How inhumane, how brutal this process is, and it's all to no purpose," Gurnett said.
"If we're going to put pressure on our leaders in this city, to treat people that are camping better, we have to see what's going on."
On Friday morning, workers collected items on the site, including bicycle wheels and tires, clothes, blankets, bags, wood, and cardboard, and loaded them into trucks.
During Homeward Trust's last count in March 2023, more than 2,800 people were experiencing homelessness in Edmonton, and more than 750 of them reported frequently sleeping outside.
Encampment removal follows court injunction
The 105 Avenue structures are one of eight encampments included in a court injunction from earlier this month that spells out conditions for how and when the city and police can remove such camps.
The city had planned to dismantle camps at the eight sites on Dec. 18. The Coalition for Justice and Human Rights, which advocates for people living in encampments, challenged the removal in court when members got word of the city's plans.
The parties reached an agreement last week to slow down the removal of structures and proceed with dismantling only if certain conditions are met.
Those conditions include city staff and police confirming there is enough indoor shelter space available to house people who are displaced; considering whether exposure to inclement weather will pose an undue risk; officials must give residents 48 hours' notice of the removal, and notify social agencies of the plans; and paramedics and firefighters must have access to anyone who needs their help.
Those conditions are in place until Jan. 11 when the parties return to court. Scheduled that day is a hearing for the coalition's application to stop encampment removals citywide while it prepares a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city's camp removal policy.
Some people who live rough have said they prefer it to shelters because they can stay with their romantic partners and pets, can keep more possessions with them, and are worried about safety, noise and privacy in shelters.
In an email on Friday, city spokesperson Karen Zypchyn said staff are working closely with social agencies to keep safe people who are living in encampments.
She said the city considers the encampment high risk if there is a higher chance of injury or death due to fire, drug use, gang violence, carbon monoxide poisoning, violence and weapons use, public health and sanitation risks, environmental degradation or criminal activity. The city also considers how close camps are to schools and playgrounds, how many people live there and how long it has been in place.
There were five people who occupied the 105 Avenue camp, with eight structures being taken down and one motor home removed, according to a news release from the city Friday.
In a separate statement, Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said he has asked the city manager to update the city's process to respond to encampments, including improved co-ordination with social agencies.
Both Zypchyn and the mayor said the city would adhere to the terms of the court injunction.
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With files from Madeline Smith, Jamie McCannel and Nathan Gross