Simcoe encampment prompts call to tackle homelessness

Tents have gone from outside a downtown Simcoe arena, but worries about homelessness persist in Norfolk County.

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An encampment that sprang up in mid-May against the wall of Talbot Gardens disappeared as suddenly in June.

Joy Allgood, who owns a bakery across the street from the arena, came early one morning and was surprised to see one of the men from the encampment sweeping up the parking lot around the tents.

“Then a little while later, a pickup truck with a trailer came,” she told The Spectator.

Some of the encampment residents helped load six tents onto the trailer, plus assorted furniture that had piled up.

“There was no fuss, no muss. “Nobody seemed upset,” Allgood said.

“By the end of the day, everything was cleaned up and gone.”

The encampment’s new home is on the banks of the Lynn River in the west end of downtown on Pond Street, behind an empty building that used to house Simcoe’s seniors’ centre and a youth theatre company.

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In an interview, Norfolk’s general manager of health and social services, Sarah Page, said the county “absolutely did not” participate in or fund the relocation of the encampment.

The tents are sitting on county-owned property, but Page said Norfolk did not force the encampment residents out or tell them where to go.

“We didn’t select the new location. They moved on their own,” Page said.

“They have multiple community partners that they interact with on a daily basis that encourage them to move there.”

The tents are near a porta-potty and needle drop box that were already in place for residents’ use.

“I’m hoping that encourages more cleanliness than we had at the other site,” Page said.

There were six tents off Pond Street when The Spectator recently visited, along with one tent on the lawn outside town hall.

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Three people at the encampment declined to be interviewed.

Fencing now wraps around the arena where the tents had been.

“Planned building envelope work is proceeding and moving around the building,” Norfolk spokesperson Jarah Stefek told The Spectator.

“To prepare for the work, construction fencing has been erected for public safety reasons.”

Allgood said she was “very pleased” to see the encampment — which she said at its height numbered “11 or 13” tents — moved to a safer location.

She said she and her grandson witnessed a drug deal in the arena parking lot, and she saw one of the encampment residents “dance” onto the street and nearly be hit by a passing pickup truck.

“It was very loud. Partying, fighting. “It was a lot,” said Allgood, who was equally concerned about frustrated locals who threatened “vigilante fixes.”

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‘It’s getting worse’

The encampment attracted widespread attention after Peter Black, a former municipal councillor and the owner of the commercial building that houses the bakery, wrote an open letter to council and local media criticising “Norfolk County’s disregard for our homeless people” and demanding action.

He expressed his sympathy for “these unfortunate individuals in need of the county’s help” and asked for them to be “relocated to a safer and more sanitary location.”

In an interview, Black said homelessness is a “complex, multifaceted problem” that demands a systemic response, with solutions like tents, tiny homes, and trailers on vacant industrial land to get people on the road to housing.

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“I can’t blame council 100 per cent. They can’t do it by themselves,” Black said. “They have to have the federal and provincial governments involved to seriously deal with it.”

A decade ago, Black was the council representative on an anti-poverty group that tried to address homelessness.

“It’s not new here. “We’ve always had this issue,” he told The Spectator. “It’s just bigger. It’s getting worse.”

One positive to come out of the encampment, Allgood said, is “now there’s a full conversation” about homelessness in Haldimand-Norfolk.

While for years she saw people sleeping behind the dumpsters next to the arena and on the bench outside her bakery, the tents were a constant and visible reminder of the problem.

“Here I think it was easy for a lot of people to just not look. And this (encampment) made it so you couldn’t not look,” Allgood said.

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“I think all levels of government — in this area, anyway — are taking notice.”

Sending out an SOS

At a special council meeting to discuss the encampment, Mayor Amy Martin rallied councillors to call on the province for more money to get people housed.

“Ultimately, we haven’t found a solution to the problem. “Just a new location,” Martin said in an interview about the encampment.

The Western Ontario Wardens Caucus and the Association of Municipalities of Ontario continue to lobby Queen’s Park to address the triple challenge of homelessness, addiction, and mental health, the mayor said.

“It’s becoming more of a rural issue. “It’s not just isolated to urban centres anymore,” Martin said.

“And I think the province does recognize it. We just got $4 million last year for homeless prevention funding. But you don’t see that at work, because it’s to keep people in their homes.”

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Norfolk does not build rent-geared-to-income housing, for which there is a dire local need. Provincial funds are being put toward emergency shelter beds and eviction prevention programs that pay off rent arrears and utility bills for people at risk of losing their homes.

“So we’re proactively using that money to keep a roof over people’s heads,” Martin said.

The tents may be out of sight, but the people living in them are still top of mind for the county’s homelessness prevention team, Page said. Counsellors make regular visits to the new encampment to check on residents’ well-being and try to connect them with more permanent support.

“We are continuing to work with them. I just want to make sure that they’re safe and have access to (services),” Page said.

“And ideally, I want them in houses. I just don’t have any.”

JP Antonacci is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter based at the Hamilton Spectator. The initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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