Communication a concern over homeless camp

The moving of the homeless camp to a new site on Grand Avenue near the Chatham water treatment plant led to a slew of questions from municipal councillors at their July 14 meeting.

The Rotary Park camp came down on Monday, with many of its residents – termed “stayers” by Chatham-Kent staff – who had been there for a year, relocating to the greenspace to the west of the Public Utilities Commission facility on Grand Avenue East.

The stayers had to be gone July 14. By that night, a fence surrounded the park and all that remained was to clean up all the debris left behind.

The reason the camp had to go was due to coming shoreline stabilization work along the north side of the Thames River.

Jodi Guilmette, general manager of health and human services stressed municipal staff did not tell the homeless where to relocate.

“Staff have not provided any direction with any stayers with respect to where they should go. We can tell them where not to go, identifying what is not appropriate,” she said.

That includes being too close to schools, children’s playgrounds, athletic fields, and private property lines.

The current location on Grand should satisfy all rules, as it is well away from soccer fields and a community garden on the east side of the property, and an abandoned rail corridor divides the land from homes to the west.

But the 10-metre setback will have to be closely monitored at the north side of the property.

Chatham Coun. Michael Bondy, who said he has fielded numerous calls from concerned residents, sees that as a problem.

“I understand the rules, the guidelines that are in place. In this circumstance with the PUC property, the north end of that trail, there is no barrier to keep anybody 10 metres away from someone’s backyard,” he said. “How will it be enforced or adhered to? How do we as a municipality speak to the nearby residents?”

Guilmette said R.O.C.K. personnel are “very familiar with our protocols. They have worked very closely with the stayers when they erected their tents to ensure they have complied with our protocols.”

She added that if there is a situation where a resident believes the protocols aren’t being followed, they should call 311 and ask to speak to Kim Crew, director of housing services.

“We will investigate,” Guilmette said.

Chatham Coun. Alysson Storey also heard from residents.

“The concern from folks is the lack of notification for this site. It did seem to come up fairly quickly,” she said. “The location seems a lot farther for (homeless) folks, especially during a heat emergency, for them to walk downtown for their services.”

Guilmette stressed it was “the stayers’ choice to move to that site. I don’t know if I want to pretend to understand why they opted to move to that site.”

Chatham Coun. Brock McGregor said whenever there is change, it only brings out more questions. He said he believed community members may not have been well informed on the process; “how we develop the encampment bylaw and what municipalities have control over and what we don’t.”

Guilmette said municipal staff looked at what other municipalities were doing in regard to their homeless, focusing on best practices.

“It’s about what makes sense for us. We looked at what some of the practices were put in place by other municipalities,” she said. “That’s how we came to have the encampment protocols.”

Dave Taylor director of legal services, said the courts have illustrated that if someone does not have “available shelter” for them, they can shelter on public land. There aren’t enough beds in the homeless shelter on Murray Street to accommodate everyone.

Concerns over trash and criminal activity were also raised by councillors.

Chatham-Kent Police Chief Kirk Earley said CCTV cameras are not in place where the new “tent city,” as Bondy called it, is located.

“We use an evidence-based approach. For us to assume crime will occur at either location, that’s not the appropriate approach. That’s stereotyping these individuals. I don’t think that’s fair,” Earley said.

He added there was some criminal activity at the Rotary Park encampment, but not the entire camp. CCTV cameras were eventually installed there, however.

Guilmette said keeping the area clean can be a challenge.

“We were doing the best we could with the resources we had,” she said of the Rotary Park encampment, which at times resembled a trash heap.

Storey urged other residents to not rubberneck when it comes to the encampment.

“I request that our community does not drive by this site to treat it like an attraction. I don’t think that’s appropriate,” she said. “This is where they live. It’s an extremely difficult situation.”

Meanwhile, Chatham-Kent police said they have been receiving 911 calls over the location of the encampment.

“We remind the public that calling 9-1-1 is for emergencies only. If you have questions or concerns with the location of an unhoused person sheltering in a location you believe violates the encampment protocol, we ask that you call 311 or our non-emergency number at 519-436-6600,” officials said in a release.