City councillors criticize Hamilton’s sanctioned encampment proposal

Hamilton city councillors debated a suggestion of sanctioned encampments on Wednesday. The sanctioned areas would allow unhoused people to camp there.
City councillors say they want to ensure respect for the human rights of people who are forced to live in these tent camps. Some of them said that’s not what they see in the proposal that was put forward by city staff for these sanctioned camps.
Ward 2 councillor Cameron Kroetsch says the stress on human rights didn’t make it into the city’s proposal, “the direction here was impeccably clear but then the result is something different and now we’re back to a kind of square one-ish place, in my heart anyways that’s what I feel.”
The city staff presented a proposal to allow homeless people to camp in sanctioned encampments that would follow a series of rules. If the rules aren’t followed the city would then engage in escalated enforcement which may include working with Hamilton police.
Under the sanctioned encampment rules, there would be a limit of five tents together in any one group. Each group of tents would have to be 50 metres from any other group of tents. The maximum space for a tent would be three metres by three metres and there is a long list of prohibited places for tents. Those places included near or against a highway, sidewalk, entrance or exit to a fire route, against or under or be attached and tied to any permanent structure, near any community garden or any garden shed or greenhouse, on a pathway sidewalk, parking lot or under bridges. And the list goes on.
Ward 3 councillor Nrinder Nann says, “Fundamentally at the end of the day what I know is that folks that are living unhoused don’t want to be forced to move from here to there to there to there at a repeated process nor do they want to be losing their belongings.”
Social worker Gessie Stearns says, “Where are the human needs in this? If this is meant to be a human rights approach, or a human rights-based approach to encampment, where are the humans?”
The councillors voted not to proceed with the sanctioned encampment plan. Instead, they directed the staff to see what the Hamilton public thinks next month and report back by August. If the proposal is eventually adopted, the city staff say Hamilton could see groups of five tents popping up in parks all over the city, each of them 50 metres from the other.

[@SuperBikeRacer7]

Start taking domestic abusers to task, the battered women's shelters are loaded and have to turn countless women away who can very easily end up in these camps!

[@MrJabez89]

Those are some simple rules to follow

[@k.s.333]

"tent camps"? 🙄

[@fallenangel7884]

1:49 Where do you want them to live?? Underground? I know you want to hide the homelessness problem in Hamilton, but at least allow them to camp in the corner of a lonely park, somewhere. Them living right by city hall is bad though. I passed by there a few times and it looked like a scene from the Walking Dead. Bad look for Downtown Hamilton.

[@sometea4741]

Where i live the health "authority encouraged them all to settle in the center, one block from our only middle school, only high school, only christian elementary, another elementary, seniours homes, daycares..also within one block of the only university, only community center..these are all withing one block of each other and the govt put a homeless shelter and ops smack dab in the middle..theres nefariousness going on..who does that to school kids and communities? Thats danger disaster every day for my areas children. Damn right it matters where these sites go and the health board is superceding our elected councils..how is this continuing..

[@Tucker1796]

How about noooooooooo

[@awjnck204]

People need to be able to stop what they’re doing and help. We just need to step back for a minute and realize that the way society is going is obviously not right and will have to change… otherwise the number of homeless people and homeless children will contribute to rise. The waiting list is like 10 years for most people from what I’ve heard to get housing… other than that you’re fucked.

[@jtrc99]

What’s wrong with people these days ,get a fund raiser going start raising money to end homelessness get a barbecue and sale smokies , chips drinks and play music and get the homeless people involved to help

[@nt178]

give em an entire park to have

[@kpax45]

Where? There is too many not in my backyard mentality for that to work

[@scottrose220]

@@kpax45yeah, just imagine those ignorant tax payers not wanting their park space taken over by drugs and crime.