Crews clear homeless encampment in Cambridge

An encampment in Cambridge has been dismantled. CTV’s Colton Wiens explains why advocates are calling for compassion as shelter space remains scarce.

More than a dozen people were displaced after crews tore down a Cambridge encampment on Tuesday morning.

According to city officials, the encampment was located on property owned by a private resident and the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway (CPKC).

Heavy machinery was brought in to help remove tents and other items from the Beverly Street site. Bylaw officers, the Waterloo Regional Police Service and CPKC officers were also at the site to oversee the work.

The residents said they had received trespass notices “for months.”

The region promises to work with them to come up with a housing plan, but admitted there were limited options.

“The emergency shelter and transitional housing system and programs, they do struggle with capacity and occupancy, despite having doubled [shelter spaces] over the past five years,” Chris McEvoy, the manager of homelessness and supportive housing for the Region of Waterloo, said. “This system is either near or at capacity on a nightly basis.”

In an email, CPKC said CPKC Police Service members were at the site to clear the encampment in the interest of public safety. They said the encampment was “encroaching on railroad property and near an active railroad line.”

Where will residents go?

Housing advocates helped residents pack up some of their stuff at the encampment site and moved it into a U-Haul truck. Where they will go next is anyone’s guess.

“They’ve been here for many months and there’s quite literally nowhere for them to go,” said Erin Dej, a member of the Unsheltered Campaign and an associate professor in Wilfrid Laurier University’s criminology department. “We’ve looked everywhere, and we can’t find any spot for these folks to go in.”

“I’ve been calling everyone I can in the service system to see if there are any options, but it looks like there are no options,” added David Alton with Social Development Centre Waterloo Region. “These people are going to be forced into making a choice between two bad options. One is finding another precarious location, which they are likely to be evicted from immediately, or two, trying to set up shop on regional property and hope that the region protects them from the city. Which, there’s been no guarantees that the region will do that.”

Alton also explained why there was so much stuff piled up at the encampment.

“Residents are trying to stockpile their structures and winterize them as best as possible as the weather cools,” Alton said, adding that there are no other alternatives.

“People often are like, ‘Oh, they’re choosing this,” Alton explained. “And I’m like, ‘Between what? What is the choice?’ Right now, they are experiencing a lack of what we call safe, dignified, adequate space. Maybe they don’t have family or friends who they feel safe with. They definitely don’t have shelters that they feel safe in, or that meet their needs. And they clearly do not have land anywhere in the region that they are able to go to and not be harassed, threatened and evicted.”

“They have to exist somewhere,” Dej argued. “I understand people not liking encampments and not wanting to look at them. We demonize people for not having gotten their life together and not having gotten a job. They’re literally trying to survive day-to-day. They don’t know where they’re going to be able to put their heads down at night. How can they think about bigger things than that?”

Both advocates worried about further evictions.

The Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) confirmed an encampment was recently removed from GRCA property, in collaboration with the City of Cambridge and Waterloo Regional Police.

“Prior to the removal, residents of the encampment were contacted and provided with several months’ notice – both written and verbal – that they would be required to vacate the area. Over the following weeks, GRCA staff, Region of Waterloo Social Housing representatives, and WRPS officers made several return visits to ensure residents were informed and connected with available supports and resources,” the GRCA explained in an email.

Dej called it a “broken system.”

“We are charging people and fining people who are living in such abject poverty that they have no home to live in,” she said. “The idea of fining people isn’t going to change anything. All it’s going to do is make housed people feel better for a little bit that something has been done, but nothing actually has happened.”

- With reporting by Colton Wiens