In Labrador, those caring for a town's homeless population face backlash, criticism
CTV
A community group in Labrador is facing backlash for helping the homeless, with some residents saying the group is "enabling" the homeless population.
On a recent spring day in a sandy church parking lot in Labrador, Vanessa Hamel stopped mid-sentence to lean out of a food truck window and wave to an approaching group of people.
"Whaddaya doin'?" she sang out to them, laughing. They waved and laughed back.
She pulled her head back into the truck -- the local Salvation Army's Emergency Disaster Relief Vehicle -- and began gathering up bags of ham sandwiches, juices and snacks to hand out to them. They're homeless and they sometimes get extra, said Hamel, who is a community outreach worker with the church.
A church offering food to those who can't afford it is generally unremarkable. But in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, N.L., it's become controversial. Among Hamel's familiar clients are homeless and transient people who live along the wooded trails that snake through the town. Their numbers have spiked from a few dozen to more than 80 in recent years. As governments and organizations race to find a way to house and care for them, the community has become divided over what will work, and whether help should be offered at all.
"We've been accused of enabling them," Byron Kean, the church's corps officer, said in an interview. He said some people yell at them as they're handing out meals. "There are individuals that will flip us the bird," he said. "But if people need a meal, we're going to provide a meal."
Happy Valley-Goose Bay spreads out from the bank of the Churchill River, a wide expanse of churning water that cuts through central Labrador. The town is home to about 8,000 people. On a recent spring Saturday, there were joggers, cyclists and people riding ATVs on the community's vast trail network.
There is evidence of people living in the woods along the trails in some areas: rumpled tarps, empty food and beer boxes and snuffed-out fire pits. There are more and more young men living among them, and they're more aggressive, Kean said. They steal from local stores, they run into the roads and they break into people's houses, he said.
