An environmental cleanup company has begun dismantling a homeless encampment in Woodstock deemed a hazard because of its location near a rail line, a city official says.
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Woodstock was alerted “some time ago” by CN Rail police about an encampment at the end of Clarke Street South that created concern for the safety of people living there, forestry and parks supervisor Grant Drygas said.
“(CN Rail police) both felt this was becoming a hazard, for the land and the people who are living here because of the proximity to the tracks and the fire load of the debris that was accumulating,” he said. “There was a couple of incidents of fire earlier in the year and then, through that process, our outreach partners were communicating to them that really this isn’t a safe place to be.”
Officials had notified those living at the site on several occasions of the dangers associated with its location, Drygas said. After a notice was posted that the area must be vacated, the people living there appear to have “moved on,” he said.
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Drygas said he’d heard three people lived at the encampment that was first established about a year ago, but that others would come and go before it was abandoned.
“Outreach to anyone who had been staying at this encampment previously, regarding notification of the cleanup, timeline to move possessions, etc., would have been conducted by outreach workers from one of the community partners,” Shaylyn Jackson, a community service officer with Woodstock police, said in an email to The Free Press.
On Monday, the forested area of the vacated camp had numerous wooden boards and miscellaneous trash strewn throughout the area not far from the railroad tracks.
An environmental cleanup company had set up three large garbage bins at the end of Clarke Street and began removing the debris left behind at the camp, a job that could take up to two weeks.
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“We’re going to learn some lessons, because this is a very unique location as well, and obviously the challenge of the rail corridor will slow things up,” Drygas said. “We’ve also had a very wet year, so we’re anticipating that, you know, weather may slow us up as well.”
But the encampment at the end of Clarke Steet is just one among as many as two dozen such locations in the city of about 46,000 people.
“We’re somewhere in the ballpark of between 20 and 25 (encampments),” Drygas said. “That’s not necessarily reflective of how many people are on the street, but that’s, like, a built structure or a tent.”
Oxford County, where Woodstock is located, has made strides to address homelessness in recent months.
In March, the county doubled the number of beds to 25 at the Inn – a shelter operating at Old St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Woodstock – and last month, the county approved $1.7 million for more transitional housing projects.
Nearby London – the largest city in the region with a population exceeding 420,000 – is also facing a problem with homelessness.
In January, it was estimated the city had as many as 103 encampments and up to 2,100 unhoused people.
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada
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