Saskatoon Fire Department report highlights homeless encampments and costs

The report for 2023 up to June 25 had 290 encampments found by fire inspectors across 44 neighbourhoods in Saskatoon.

Saskatoon city council could be sending a letter to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Social Services to reduce barriers for homeless people seeking housing and supports.

Wednesday’s city council meeting will be looking over a report from the fire department’s community risk reduction team, which says Saskatoon Fire Department fire inspectors started documenting inadequate and outdoor living conditions in November 2021.

The report said that in 2021 there were 116 encampments across 27 neighbourhoods in the city. There were 43 inadequately housed people, with six known repeat interactions and 650 fire and bylaw inspector response hours.

In 2022, there were 512 encampments found in the city across 53 neighbourhoods. Fire inspectors counted 221 inadequately housed people with 39 known repeat interactions and 3,900 response hours.

The report for 2023 up to June 25 had 290 encampments found by fire inspectors across 44 neighbourhoods. They counted 85 inadequately housed people with 22 known repeat interactions and 1,950 response hours used so far.

The neighbourhoods with the highest amount of incidents were:

But the report noted that since November 2021, 40 per cent of people known to the fire department have taken supports and have been successfully rehoused.

It said there’s been a notable increase in inadequately housed people who were new to fire inspectors in 2023.