There’s a growing desire for the development of an encampment committee to help the municipality and council “address” the plethora of issues surrounding the homeless encampment in Chatham.
You’ll see a letter to the editor this week on the matter, “Form an encampment committee,” and read comments from Chatham Coun. Michael Bondy on a story, “Council discusses cabins, shelters and encampments.”
In both instances, the call is for a committee to be formed – comprised of local residents, business owners, councillors and municipal staff – to be more proactive in addressing encampment issues in and around the Grand Avenue East encampment.
Bondy said the committee should be comprised of “all invested groups – councillors, residents of the encampment area, area business owners and (C-K) administrative personnel.”
The letter states a desire for “equal representation from council, residents, business owners and municipal staff.”
What is not mentioned is representation from the people in the encampment.
Not including them in a committee that would influence where they stay and how they live is akin to U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin meeting to discuss peace for the Russian-Ukraine conflict without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It also infers they are not worthy of having a say on their future.
It would be best for everyone involved that if such a committee is formed it should include actual camp residents to provide lived-experience input.
We’re not talking about representatives on their behalf, but actual people who are living rough.
Put them across the table from neighbours of the Grand Avenue East greenspace that is now partially occupied by the encampment. Let them see and hear the frustration from nearby business owners.
And, in turn, let others on the committee see real faces of real people who are homeless. Speak with the individuals. Hear their stories.
This would provide a better opportunity to comprehend the everyone’s concerns. Putting a human element on a problem fosters understanding.
Bondy’s motion is to be addressed at the Sept. 25 council meeting.
On the encampment topic, we can’t help but point out the site of the former encampment remains idle. Remember when, in mid-July, the tents had to be torn down to allow for crews to begin slope stabilization on the bank of the Thames River?
Well, as of press time, two months after the encampment move, nothing had been done on Thames Street property.
Again, nothing mentioned about mental illness and drug abuse!
I believe there is a double standard in how our laws are enforced. In Ontario, it is illegal to be intoxicated in public with alcohol — a legal substance — and people can face tickets, fines, or even jail. Yet, open use of illegal drugs in public is tolerated, alongside vandalism, shoplifting, leaving unsafe and unsanitary hazardous/biological waste, and other disruptive behavior that tax-paying residents could never get away with.
I have personally witnessed repeated thefts where staff admit they don’t even bother calling police because nothing will be done. As one lawyer told me, “you can’t get water from a stone” — so there’s no financial incentive to prosecute people with no means. But this approach leaves communities unsafe and enables addiction to continue unchecked.
Homelessness due to high housing costs is one issue. Addiction is another. Allowing people to hit “rock bottom” on the streets does not serve them or our community. We need a solution that gets people off the streets and into care facilities, where recovery, treatment, and rehabilitation are possible. Human rights must apply to everyone — including the rights of community members to feel safe where they live.
there should be some kind of emphasis to include financial literacy and teaching job searching and job coaching for the homeless right because people in life have to watch their dollars and cents so they don’t end up on the streets because this is an issue that everyone struggles with for sure and no one wants to see a homeless person outside of a grocery store every day because its become an everyday thing where we see them in nortown plaza for peat sakes this is bad for businesses for them being there i hate to say this but they need to be told to stop panhandling cause they being considered a pest that is harder to get rid of