Move from encampment to shelters ‘not the solution’ to homeless crisis in Brampton, advocates say

At least one person has died in shelter since the city cleared out and moved homeless encampments near Brampton’s Etobicoke Creek, leading housing advocates to make a plea to city council for more “wrap-around supports” to help at-risk residents.

Approximately 50 people were moved from the encampments last month after Brampton City Councillor raised safety concerns related to residents living in tents and structures in Calvert Park.

Many of the occupants were moved to Peel Region shelters including a motel being used to house at-risk people, but a local outreach group says many of their clients have been left isolated and are struggling to access services like addiction and mental health treatment.

Regeneration Brampton says at least one person has died in the shelter since the camp was cleared out, and simply moving at-risk residents to the region’s already overcrowded shelters won’t fix the city’s homelessness woes.

“It’s warehousing people,” said Ted Brown, CEO of Regeneration Brampton, of the region’s shelter system. “We have an absolute housing crisis, and it’s just not for people that are experiencing homelessness.”

The death follows an asylum claimant in his 40s who was found dead in an encampment outside Dundas Street East and Dixie Road. Then in February, an African refugee died after waiting hours to get into a shelter in Mississauga.

While not ideal and out of doors, the encampment was in a walkable area that gave homeless Bramptonians autonomy with access to nearby transit routes. Jenna Robson, director of operations at Regeneration, says residents moved from the encampment are struggling to access addiction treatment and other critical services.

There are also significant mental health concerns for residents, she said.

“It’s almost like institutionalising people, in a way,” Robson told Insauga.com.

“When you’re pouting everyone in survival mode, and in crisis, together, people don’t necessarily get along,” she said of the motel shelter. “There’s a whole bunch of different personalities in a very tight space, and for a lot of people, that makes them not feel safe.”

Regeneration has two facilities in Brampton, including an outreach centre at Grace United Church which provides a meal program and support services, but will be out of their second location at the end of the year due to a lease agreement.

Brown came to Brampton City Council on Wednesday to ask the city to help fund a new centre that provides “wrap-around supports” including addiction and mental health services, but many of councillors’ questions were about the already-cleared-out encampments as opposed to Regeneration’s plea for help.

“Our sole purpose was to ask for their help in looking for a location,” Brown said of Regeneration’s ask of the city. “That was the focus that we had as an organization, and I can’t answer why council went the way that they did,” reiterating that Regeneration “supports people that are living in the encampments, but we don’t support them to stay there.”

“We’ve given the occasional tent out, which shouldn’t paint us into this picture of ‘we’re condoning everything that happens,'” he said.

Bringing all of Regeneration’s services under one roof will better equip the group to tackle what Brown calls Brampton’s “chronic” homelessness crisis. And despite the frosty reception, Brown said he’s confident the city will come through “to help us come up with that solution.”

“There are families that are in housing crisis, there are students who are housing crisis, and in Brampton, the development isn’t happening fast enough to cover that off,” Brown said.

“I believe that it’s decades away from being at the point where we’re going to be able to solve this.”

Coun. Rowena Santos raised safety concerns related to encampments on city-owned land last month, which is also a floodplain of the Etobicoke Creek. Residents were offered relocation to a “stable housing option” through Peel’s shelter system, which the city said would “ensure both the safety and connection to supports for those within encampments.”

The region manages all the shelter services for Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon but has experienced a massive surge in demand over recent years. Back in March the region said some 1,200 households of asylum seekers were being housed in Mississauga and Brampton shelters, making up some 70 per cent of all shelter stays.