Push to clear encampments gains momentum in Waterloo region, Guelph
Big City Mayors have asked province to intervene in homelessness crisis
People living in an encampment in downtown Guelph, Ont., have been given until Wednesday to move out of the area.
It's part of a new public space bylaw that prohibits people from setting up tents or structures on certain city properties and it comes after the city's mayor signed a letter asking the province to do more to address homelessness.
In an interview on CBC's Power & Politics earlier this month, Guthrie said that despite there being enough shelter space, sometimes the shelter beds are refused.
"That's where some of this legal friction, the legal issues, the legal patchwork that's happening across the province from different cities is causing problems amongst all of us," he said.
Guthrie and other mayors have indicated a 2023 decision by a Kitchener judge has made it difficult for them to move people out of certain areas.
Ontario Superior Court Justice M.J. Valente ruled that Waterloo region could not use a municipal bylaw to evict people living in an encampment in Kitchener because that bylaw was deemed to be in violation of Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The judge said a lack of shelter spaces means the bylaw infringed upon Charter rights. Until the region had enough beds for all the people who needed them, the municipality could not clear the encampment.
On Oct. 31, 13 Ontario mayors signed a letter where they "strongly" requested the provincial government intervene in the chronic homelessness crisis. Guthrie was one of the people to sign the letter.
Another was Cambridge Mayor Jan Liggett.
"I've had to hold people whose children have died while they're crying in my arms," Liggett said of why she signed the letter. "It's extremely hard to handle. They are asking for help. They have been for a number of years."
The letter asks a number of things from the province, including to use the notwithstanding clause to override court decisions preventing municipalities from clearing and prohibiting encampments as well as expanding on mandatory mental health and addictions treatment.
The notwithstanding clause is in Section 33 of the Charter and allows governments to temporarily override other sections of that document.
"I see the notwithstanding clause as a part of the original motion where we ask for all of the other things — they all go hand-in-hand," Liggett said on CBC K-W's The Morning Edition.
"But I don't think that the premier can help us with the encampments unless he uses the notwithstanding clause."
WATCH | Is the notwithstanding clause a tool to address homelessness? Some Ontario mayors think so:
'Coercion into treatment'
In Cambridge, Liggett put forward a motion drafted by the Ontario Big City Mayors caucus at a council meeting on Nov. 5. She said it took 28 mayors six hours to put together the list of 21 points and their resolution.
The mention of mandatory treatment was the biggest point of contention for council, despite the motion passing 6-3. Some warned that involuntary treatment might not work and could potentially make things worse for folks experiencing addiction and mental health issues.
Ward 7 Coun. Scott Hamilton, who voted against the motion, said in an interview with CBC News he felt it was "basically coercion into treatment."
He said he's not a housing nor a health expert but "this is a crisis of housing, it's a crisis of health."
"It's not something that a part-time municipal city council is equipped to really make complex decisions on at a point of crisis," Hamilton said.
But Liggett stressed she believes there is no evidence on either side that says mandatory or involuntary treatment does not work.
"Do we wait until years down the road when the studies come forward and let more and more people die?" she said during the city council meeting where the motion was passed.
Before it gets to that however, Liggett said the city will exhaust its available avenues to treatment for those experiencing homelessness first.
"Involuntary treatment or mandatory treatment does not preclude any of the other items that we may ask for," she said.
Use of notwithstanding clause a 'big red flag,' says lawyer
Hamilton also raised concerns with the letter signed by Liggett, Guthrie and 11 other mayors that requests the province intervene in court rulings about encampments by using the notwithstanding clause.
"It was my position personally and as a city councillor that we have to uphold our Charter rights," Hamilton said of his concerns about the potential use of the notwithstanding clause.
"History has a long track record of when we violate individual or human rights through a political decision that comes back to bite us in the end."
Ashley Schuitema is the incoming executive director of Waterloo Region Community Legal Services and a lawyer with the organization. The service's mandate is to help low income Ontarians, including those living in encampments.
She said the use of the notwithstanding clause "should be a big red flag for people."
"It will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. People will continue to be displaced," Schuitema said, adding her clients are concerned about what might happen if they were to be removed from encampments.
"Often it's a choice of moving further into a bush so they can avoid detection," she said, adding this isolates them from their community and makes it more difficult for support services to reach them.
WATCH | Waterloo region lawyer calls potential use of notwithstanding clause 'a big red flag':
People may not feel safe in shelters: Advocate
Lorelei Root is a regular volunteer with Your Downtown Guelph Friends who hand out meals to folks camping on St. George Square. She said some people are refusing shelter because of various reasons.
WATCH | Guelph advocate says people may choose not to enter shelter system for various reasons:
"People who have accessibility accommodations, people with autism spectrum disorder who have difficulty in shelter situations, people who for different kinds of social reasons are not feeling safe in certain shelters with certain other people that they maybe don't get along with," she said.
Root also said she's heard from community support workers that there isn't enough shelter space at all.
Wellington County reports that there are approximately 270 people who are homeless in Guelph-Wellington. The Homeless Hub — a project of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness at York University — notes this is a number from the 2021 point-in-time count.
Root says she has heard other city councillors don't support Guthrie's decision to sign the letter asking for the province to use the notwithstanding clause and she hopes other options could be used.
"I think that when we're looking at possibly overriding people's Charter rights, I can't see why we would do that to such a vulnerable population of people who are already in such a life-threatening situation. To me, that doesn't make any sense," Root said.
"I don't see it being a good solution to the problems that we're facing in the city."
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