The clock may be about to run out for residents of the Berczy Park homeless encampment in downtown Barrie.
The city handed out 21 bylaw infraction notices at the downtown park on Sept. 3, which gave residents there 72 hours to "correct" the noted violations, which cited several infractions for behaviour contrary to city bylaws. Those included placing debris on city property contrary to the nuisance bylaw, fouling the land by urinating and defecating, and camping within a public park contrary to the parks use bylaw.
When asked what will happen when the 72-hour deadline is reached, Dawn McAlpine, the city’s general manager of community and corporate services, said the city will follow up and determine its next steps based on the circumstances of the individuals and the site at that time.
Tiffany Garratt grew up in the neighbourhood and has lived on Berczy Street for about a year, just across from the park’s northeast entrance. She said she doesn’t go to the park, despite it being just across the street.
“I refuse to bring my daughter there. Now, more so in the summer, I barely even walk through there because I have a five-year-old who likes to ask questions and I don’t really know how to explain it to her. I avoid it altogether … plus it’s just really dirty,” Garratt said.
Even as a kid, Garratt says she was warned to avoid going to the park alone. And now, as an adult, she doesn't venture out after dark.
News of the city's bylaw-enforcement efforts that took place earlier this week were welcomed by Garratt, but she said she doesn’t think it will be enough to make a real change.
“I know it’s difficult. In reality, there is nothing they really can do," she said. "Once they kick them out of one area, they’re just going to go to another area. I feel like they could do a bit more."
The addition of more permanent shelter beds, and not turning people away, might be a good first step, Garratt says.
“I work at a Tim Hortons where a lot of homeless people come and I have heard stories where people get turned down or if they don’t make it by a certain time … then they’re stuck on the street," she said.
While city officials have said there's no plan to evict people who have been living in the park in recent months, what happened Tuesday was far from a surprise for Sara Peddle and her staff at the nearby Busby Centre.
“We’d heard it was coming. We’ve been trying to make sure people are supported however this turns out," she said on Thursday evening. "We want to make sure they’ve got support of coming to shelter if that’s something they choose or support in whatever it is they’re needing through all of this.
“At the end of all of this, we are still dealing with people that are human beings in a housing crisis," Peddle added.
The Busby Centre was approached by the County of Simcoe to create 20 additional temporary shelter beds, said Peddle, adding those beds are being made available to the residents of the Berczy Park encampment and are being set up in a space off-site from the organization’s facility at 88 Mulcaster St.
Peddle said she was unable to share the location of the off-site shelter beds for safety reasons, however.
“We were able to make some adjustments to our space … so that we can increase by those 20 spaces," she said. "We have been busting at the seams and turning people away. Then we were advised that they would be assigned to the Berczy Park encampment, so we’ve just been doing what we do all the time in connecting with people that are staying outside."
Mina Fayez-Bahgat, the county’s general manager of social and community services, said funding for those beds is coming from the county’s 2024 budget. He said each shelter space, on average, costs $64 per day and is within the approved budget for this year.
The county is responsible for planning, funding and managing social housing programs and homelessness services, along with poverty reduction and shelter retention programs. The upper-tier municipality also has a 10-point homelessness plan to address the problem.
“We work closely with our municipal partners and funded service providers to address the emergency shelter service needs of those living outside throughout the county, including the City of Barrie,” Fayez-Bahgat said.
“Over the past year, we have introduced a data-informed strategy ... that focuses on creating housing-focused outflow from the shelter system, resulting in shelter and motel space being utilized based on specific needs," he added.
The county, which also has open data dashboards that shares the nightly shelter capacity and regional use, has not said its system is over capacity, added Fayez-Bahgat.
“In the last few months, to create outflow from the shelter system, the county introduced two new rapid rehousing programs," he said, as well as it "enhanced winter response" and relied on its motel voucher program.
Fayez-Bahgat said there's also a new local priority for its centralized wait-list for people who are homeless who are on the county's by-name list.
“Based on these initiatives, outreach agencies can offer those staying outside designated space within the system that accommodates needs. No one is turned away," he said.
Fayez-Bahgat also said there's no time limit on the shelter beds that were made available for people coming in from the encampment.
“Each day, outreach is on-site at the encampment, engaging clients on their specific needs and extending offers of shelter space accordingly,” he said.
Meanwhile, at the Busby Centre, Peddle said the creation of these “accessible shelter beds,” despite being a positive step, is unfortunately not a permanent solution to the overall problem.
“There are some people that, for a variety of reasons, may not be able to come into the shelter," she said. "We are crowded here right now. We have a lot of people that are staying here at night and to be in that close proximity to that many people … is a lot.
"If you don’t have the ability to be around that many people for whatever reason … we have to respect where people are at," Peddle added.
Offers of shelter are one thing, she said, but the focus needs to be on getting enough housing in the community.
“It’s an overwhelming concern in our community right now that we have quite a few people who are experiencing street homelessness and our shelters are already full … and we are going into the fall," Peddle said. "That’s definitely weighing on all of our minds as well.
"This is one piece of a very large puzzle in our community of people that are needing support.”
Peddle says she and her staff intend to be at the encampment this morning (Sept. 6) as support to the encampment residents, should city bylaw officers return once the 72 hours is up.
