Greater Sudbury closes homeless encampment at Memorial Park

Closure of Sudbury tent encampment in Memorial Park People living in tents in Sudbury's Memorial Park downtown are being moved to a hotel paid for by the city. Alana Everson reports.

Following up on their announcement from two weeks ago, officials with Greater Sudbury closed the tent encampment at Memorial Park on Friday.

The city said the four people still living there have agreed to move out while officials find them permanent housing options.

Santana Nahwegezhic, 33, told CTV News she has lived in a tent at Memorial Park for almost a year. On Friday she was packing up and moving to a hotel room paid for by the city while she awaits permanent housing.

"Bummed out but I am OK with it a little bit, too, cause it's time for me to move along now," said Nahwegezhic, who added she has been homeless for a decade.

"Try to get housing and stuff like that and get back to normal living and stuff."

She lived with her friend in the largest tent in the park and admits it was tough sometimes, because of the lack of services and the presence of rodents.

"Sometimes it was cold at nights but most of the time I had a heater, so it was pretty warm most of the time," Nahwegezhic said.

"And there was lots of mice, like rodents and stuff like that, it's bad like it's because they look for warmer spaces."

The city informed everyone living in the park through a notice March 15 that they and their belongings had to be out of the park by April 1.

"A lot of factors come into play when we decide to move ahead with the closure," said Stefany Mussen, manager of corporate security and bylaw services with Greater Sudbury.

"Including risk to safety to individuals in the park as well as people who want to access the park for their personal use, the length of time that has passed. (There have been) multiple offerings of services being given to individuals in the park."

Nahwegezhic said she is looking forward to living in a place with amenities.

"That is the one part that sucked is not having somewhere to use the washroom or shower when you want to," she said.

The city has erected temporary fencing in the park around the area of the tents and frozen debris while cleanup takes place.

Officials said the city will regularly patrol the park and other city spaces and ask anyone who erects a tent to take it down immediately.

It says it will use enforcement under the Trespass to Property Act as a last resort.