Hamilton council considers encampment ban for 7 lower-city parks

Hamilton city councillors are looking to ban encampments from seven locations in Ward 3 — including J.C. Beemer Park, the base of the Claremont Access and along the Escarpment Rail Trail — once a slew of new shelter spaces set for the area become available.

Councillors supported a motion from Ward 3's Nrinder Nann at Wednesday's general issues committee meeting that would ban tents within a one-kilometre radius from "a four-block area" where 123 new shelter beds will soon be located, in the area near Main and Victoria streets. The motion passed at committee but must be ratified at Wednesday's city council meeting to be officially approved.

The motion specified that camping will be prohibited after the new shelter beds are open:

"Whereas council supports reducing the impact and intensification of the temporary shelter beds on the surrounding community, therefore be it resolved that the following parks and green spaces be removed from the encampment protocol as compliant sites once the 192 temporary shelter beds are operational: 

• J.C. Beemer Park/Tweedsmuir Park.
• Bishop's Park.
• Claremont Access Parkettes. 
• 298 Hunter St. E. (a green space west of Claremont Access). 
• Carter Park.
• Myrtle Park. 
• Rail Trail between [the] extension of Wellington Street South and Sherman Avenue South."

The encampment protocol is a set of rules dictating where people can live outside, adopted by council in 2023. 

123 out of 192 new shelter beds concentrated in 1 area

On Sept. 25, council approved the creation of 192 new temporary shelter beds and an 80-person temporary outdoor shelter, to be located at Barton and Tiffany streets on land once set aside for a stadium and later film studios that were never constructed.

"As part of this, staff recommended prohibiting encampments within a one-kilometre radius of this temporary outdoor shelter site to prevent the further concentration and intensification of encampments near this fully supported location," states a staff report. 

"The 192 new temporary shelter beds will be located within existing facilities that currently operate shelter and transitional housing programs. No new facilities will be created. However, the majority of emergency shelter beds are within Wards 2 and 3 in the city and this means these temporary beds will be within this area too. This further intensifies the impact of housing services within these wards."

Staff had been directed to study a one-kilometre encampment exclusion zone around all the new shelter beds, which would have created a no-encampment policy covering a massive swath of the downtown and Ward 3 to the east. The result would have been 66 parks where encampments would no longer be allowed, affecting about 150 people currently camping there, according to Danielle Blake, the city's manager of housing-focused street outreach.

"Radial distances from all those new shelter beds would be challenging," she told councillors Wednesday. "A lot of those same [shelter] service providers, a lot of them provide takeout bag lunches and things like that already. By moving encampments further from those places, we'd be moving people away from services."

With the smaller radius proposed by councillor Nann — around 123 of the new beds, which are densely concentrated in one area — about 26 people living in encampments will be affected, said Blake. She noted the city outreach team keeps track of encamped individuals by name and is working on a plan to canvas them on why they aren't using shelters and how they can best be housed.  

Ward 2 Coun. Cameron Kroetsch, one of two councillors who did not support the motion on Wednesday, said it was premature to make changes before seeing what the outcome of the new shelter beds will be.

"I understand the tension that exists everywhere in our wards," he said, adding, "I think we need more time before we make a decision like this that would have a severe impact on people."

Some residents no longer comfortable in parks

The motion comes as councillors continue to receive complaints from residents who feel uncomfortable using public spaces where people are living. Nann described having to cancel the city's Supie program, which facilitates free activities for kids, in one park for two summers due to encampments, and situations where the only green space available to a dense area full of working-class families was no longer comfortable for some of them to use.

In a recent letter sent to Nann and several members of the media, Ward 3 resident Patrick Antilla described tents at Gage Park, the Delta and on the Niagara Escarpment that continue to "dramatically" increase in number, leave garbage and sometimes feces, and make public spaces unappealing.

In the letter, Antilla calls his household "a left-wing house, and then some" and says he voted for Nann in the last election.

"Parks are supposed to be a place where families, young children, and women can feel safe walking around unescorted, and the tents, with their myriad drugs, weapons, and sometimes unpredictable residents, need to relocate to a different area," he said, voicing support for an approach that would remove park camping entirely and allow sanctioned sites only. 

"Mayor [Andrea] Horwath stated the shift would begin 'before the snow flies' away from tents in parks. The snow is about to fly."

How they voted:

Yes: Maureen Wilson (Ward 1), Nrinder Nann (Ward 3), Tammy Hwang (Ward 4), Matt Francis (Ward 5), Brad Clark (Ward 9), Jeff Beattie (Ward 10), Mark Tadeson (Ward 11), Craig Cassar (Ward 12), Ted McMeekin (Ward 15), Andrea Horwath (mayor)

No: Cameron Kroetsch (Ward 2), Alex Wilson (Ward 13)

Absent: Tom Jackson (Ward 6), Esther Pauls (Ward 7), John-Paul Danko (Ward 8), Mike Spadafora (Ward 14)