Alberta’s capital city is no stranger to homelessness and it’s something the Edmonton River Valley Conservation Coalition wants to address.
“People are going to camp. People are camping, so why criminalize them?” asks Kristine Kowalchuk, chair of the ERVCC.
The coalition calls Edmonton’s temporary shelter prohibition inhumane and says the city’s public spaces by-law urgently needs changing.
“Rather than criminalizing people, why not support them?” Kowalchuk questioned.
The coalition wants the City of Edmonton to establish a few dedicated encampment sites with clean drinking water, washrooms, trash cans and a safe needle disposal site.
“Piloting a few encampments where people are safe, where they’re supported, where it’s contained to a safe and serviced space,” Kowalchuk explained.
Kowalchuk suggests shipping containers could also be used at sites as a form of housing.
The coalition estimates Edmonton’s homeless population at 5,000, with indoor shelter space for only half of them.
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People living on the streets often have their belongings like blankets, tents and prescription medication lost in sweeps, when when law enforcement forcibly removes homeless people and their encampments from public areas.
Cleanup crews tear down homeless encampments in Edmonton on Friday, Dec. 29, 2023.
Jason Franson/ The Canadian Press
That was the case in the winters of 2023 and 2024, when Edmonton police and city crews dismantled around a dozen high-risk homeless encampments.
The coalition’s plan seems like a tough sell for city council, however.
“We should not be settling for figuring out the best version of keeping somebody on the street,” Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack said on Friday.
“I don’t want to have to rely on a sanctioned encampment. I want a physical space we can take people to, right? Because in both of those scenarios, in either scenario those do not produce the ideal outcomes.”
Other on council agree.
“I just don’t know if, compared to the cost of actually housing somebody, I think that’s where we should be putting the emphasis on a permanent basis,” Ward Karhiio Councillor Keren Teng said.
With winter approaching, Kowalchuk would like to see dedicated encampments sooner rather than later.
“We’ve seen, year after year, that there’s not really a sufficient plan in place. We’ve got people who are freezing outside on the streets,” she said.
The ERVCC wants at least one of the encampment sites in the river valley, where many people living on the streets already set up camps in the forest.
They’re open to working with other organizations, saying it would reflect a collective investment in community care rather than throwing money into sweeps — which they argue solves nothing.
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