St. Stephen council considers homeless encampment

St. Stephen Municipal District Council might designate a place in town for people without homes to pitch tents this summer without fear of harassment.
Deputy CAO and Fire Chief Sean Morton supported the idea, which Councillor Emily Rodas raised at a committee meeting this month, that council find a site -- near amenities and services, with the municipality providing portable toilets, and accessible for police and municipal staff to control -- to divert unsheltered people from camping in public parks, back yards and elsewhere. Several councillors supported the idea, and municipal CAO Jeff Renaud said that staff could work on a proposal to present at the next regular council meeting, set for Wednesday, May 24.
"If we had them in one location that we controlled, we can manage the garbage; we can put out garbage cans. We can collect the garbage on a daily basis or every couple of days. We could put in porta potties so we're controlling the sewage. We can put in safe fire pits that we can approve, that we know have a safe perimeter around, so that if they light a fire on a night we shouldn't be lighting fire, the risk is lower than if they are hiding in the woods behind somebody's house," he said.
"I don't know where that place is," he admitted, but added, "It's not pretty but at least somewhat controlled."
Tents began to reappear this spring after the warming centre run by Neighbourhood Works at the corner of King and Prince William streets closed last month. Some tenters moved into the Elm Street Nature Park, 60 acres of woods with marked walking trails, but, as reported at the committee meeting, these people had recently left. A sign on the gate to the park states, "No Camping or Tenting," but the remains of campfires, articles of clothing and other evidence provide mute testimony to this recent occupation.
Councillors Marg Harding, Ghislaine Wheaton and David Hyslop said the municipality should lobby the provincial government for more beds and other help for people without homes.
Rodas, a social worker, said long term solutions take time. The public should be able to walk to use the park, "but my only fear would be, if we go in and we remove a large group, we are also putting many back yards at risk."
"Maybe we want to talk about more municipal land that may be more feasible to offer up. I don't know what other councillors think about that, but, I mean, our citizens also need to be able to use the park," she said.
Finding the right location will be hard, Morton said. The Elm Street Nature Park would keep homeless people "out of sight" but would present "logistical" issues for policing and removing garbage, for example. Dousing illegal fires does not always work, he said, explaining, "You chase them and they go deeper into the woods."
He suggested, facetiously, that the closed Border Area Community Arena parking lot, a paved expanse off King Street, would work well logistically, but it's hardly out of sight on the main drag into town.
Councillor Earle Eastman supports the idea of providing a place for homeless people to pitch tents. "One location, easy to monitor, easy to keep things in control. Out of all the people that we see moving around here, there's only about four or five disturbers, and once they get those guys under control, the rest of them are just docile. They just want a place to flop," he said.
Morton cited official figures that homeless people living in tents in St. Stephen might number about 63, "but there are four or five that give them all a bad name."
"If they have a place that they know that they're safe and is their own, they will police that. They will have their own mayor, they will have their own fire chief, their own police chief, right? Because they don't want to [be] kicked out of there," he said, adding, "They will help us. I know that sounds crazy, but it's real."
Mayor Allan MacEachern said that other communities use this approach and that big city problems have come to this small border town.
Homelessness and related issues have dominated recent meetings of the municipal district council, especially with the warming centre closing. Federal, provincial and municipal governments backed the warming centre as a stop gap to prevent people from freezing to death in winter. Rodas said that discussion on reopening the warming centre, possibly at a different location, would not likely start till October or November.
In the meantime, the municipal district council faces a decision on further stop gaps to get through the summer ahead while plans take shape for longer term solutions.