In mid-June, about 40 people were forcefully evicted from their homes and pushed out onto the streets of Barrie during the teardown of a homeless encampment community in Milligan's Pond near Anne and Dunlop streets.
Since then, some of those individuals have managed to find housing, get into addictions treatment or moved out of the area.
Others are in jail, sleeping on benches or in alleyways.
One person has died.
An update provided by the Barrie chapter of the Simcoe County Alliance to End Homelessness (SCATEH) as part of city council’s circulation list this week paints a sobering picture of what happened to those people after the eviction and the state of social services in Barrie.
“Housing is a human right, and those living in encampments are rights-holders," Jennifer van Gennip, chair of the Barrie chapter of SCATEH, said. "When an encampment community is evicted and individuals end up spread across the city on benches or in doorways or abandoned buildings, they are much more vulnerable and they are harder for the outreach teams to find to offer supports.”
Of the 40 people who were evicted, two have been housed, three are couch surfing, six are living in an emergency shelter, one relocated out of the area, three are squatting in abandoned buildings, 18 are back to camping or are sleeping on benches, in doorways and alleys, two have lost contact with SCATEH, one is in a substance treatment centre, three are in jail and one has died.
"These numbers are not stable. For example, someone who is camping as of this week was at the shelter for two days last week and has also couch surfed in the last three weeks,” noted the outreach team in its report.
Leading up to the eviction in June, city staff arranged several meetings including representatives from the City of Barrie, County of Simcoe, Barrie Police, Simcoe County Paramedics, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, and multiple social service agencies.
According to the report, very limited meaningful housing options and solutions were generated as part of those meetings.
Emergency shelters made space to offer spots to those at Milligan's Pond and outreach teams were onsite to offer shelter spots and other resources, however the shelters – which are currently operating using a motel/hotel model due to COVID – proved not a good fit for many individuals involved in the eviction.
“This model is admittedly more high-barrier than how the shelters prefer to operate, in order to protect people's health. (For example, there are) more rules, curfews and restrictions,” said van Gennip. “At the same time, many other support services that individuals rely on were temporarily closed. It was a stressful time and lots of folks were on edge.
“Like most adults, many people experiencing homelessness prefer a level of autonomy that isn't available in a COVID hotel shelter model so, for some, it wasn't a fit either by choice or because they were asked to leave,” she added.
At the same time, van Gennip says a sense of community is one of the factors that draws people to an encampment compared to sleeping alone on a bench.
“That's also the model at Lucy's Place and, for a lot of people, it is a successful, proven model,” she said.
Currently, the Busby Centre and the Gilbert Centre both have outreach teams actively working to support those sleeping outside, with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) providing mental health supports.
In the long-term, van Gennip says housing connected to supports is the solution needed to make impactful change locally.
“We need more supported housing. There were extensive meetings leading up to the Milligan's Pond eviction, convened by city staff in an effort to reach a solution, but without supported housing options to offer, we ended up with most of the people evicted being a lot worse off,” she said.
Looking forward, van Gennip says SCATEH is hoping to engage with city bylaw officials to come up with procedures that will allow bylaws to be followed while also leaving the people who find themselves in these situations to be left better off.
“This incident at Milligan's Pond has shown us... that bylaw officers are a stakeholder with who we need to engage as we work to end homelessness," she said. "We'd like to focus on how (bylaws are) being interpreted and enforced, and recognize that most individuals sleeping in a tent on city property have exhausted their other options and need help, not a fine or to be evicted."
Coun. Keenan Aylwin, who represents the Ward 2 area of the city where Milligan’s Pond is located, said he report should be a wake-up call for the city.
“It’s greatly concerning how few people were housed before the eviction took place at Milligan’s Pond. And it’s an absolute tragedy that one of the people is now deceased when we had the chance to possibly help them into safe and secure housing. We owe it to people in our community to do better,” he said.
Aylwin added that he believes the city has a moral obligation to deal with the housing and homelessness crisis.
“It is unacceptable that people still don’t have a safe, secure, and affordable place to call home, particularly during a global pandemic,” he said. “Barrie city council has failed for decades to address this issue and it is my hope that we can finally have the political courage to end chronic homelessness.”
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“There are a multitude of contributing factors to homelessness in Barrie,” said van Gennip.
She points to the amounts received by a person on Ontario Works.
“Someone experiencing homelessness can get Ontario Works support, but a single person on Ontario Works receives $390 for shelter (per month), while a one-bedroom apartment is about $1,100,” she said.
Van Gennip says policy changes are needed on both ends of the gap before meaningful change can happen, so Ontario Works rates need to be higher and rental options need to be within financial reach.
