Charlottetown plans response team for encampments set up by homeless people

Charlottetown is in the early stages of forming a group to deal with impromptu tent cities, but who will be in that group or how it might respond has yet to be decided.

City council unanimously passed a resolution to support the creation of a city-led response team at its meeting Monday evening.

"We're trying to be proactive instead of reactive," said Coun. Kevin Ramsay, who chairs the city's protective and emergency services committee.

It's unclear what some of the wording in the resolution means. It states the team would be put together to "address" encampments. What addressing encampments means will be defined by the terms of reference attached to the resolution, and those have not yet been developed, Ramsay said.

Who will actually be part of the group and consulted hasn't been decided yet either.

"We're certainly going to be engaged with all parties," Ramsay said, but didn't specify who those parties were.

In December the city addressed an encampment at the Charlottetown Event Grounds by first removing things such as propane tanks and jerry cans that fire officials said weren't being stored properly. Then in January after a small fire on the site the city had structures at the encampment dismantled. Fire safety will be part of the approach if and when a group is formed on impromptu encampments, Ramsay said.

"We're trying to keep everybody safe," he said.

"Just saying this is what you can do, this is what you can't do. Like you can't have open fires, I'm just using that as an example, or propane tanks or things along that line. It is a safety issue."

Ramsay hasn't heard of any large encampments set up in the city, he said.

"I think they are slowly starting to make that move and were hoping to stop it right at the first because it wasn't a pretty sight last year and it was an unsafe site," Ramsay said.

The Park Street Emergency Shelter was set up by the province this past winter to prevent some people from sleeping in tents outside. The facility is well used with 44 people staying on average each night through May. In April that number was 48. The shelter has space for 50.

"Things have been working out all winter. Now it is going to keep working out? That is the million dollar question," Ramsay said.

The idea for a response team came from a mayor's forum in May discussing homeless people in Charlottetown, said Charlottetown Mayor Philip Brown.