Homeless residents on edge as Hamilton clears debris from downtown tent encampment

The city used trucks and a front-end loader to clear bulky items and trash from a homeless encampment at the downtown arena Friday morning - but tent campers are allowed to stay, so far.

The hard-to-miss tent encampment, which has spurred complaints to the city, lines the pedestrian area around the FirstOntario Centre on York Boulevard. The inside of the arena is being used as a city-sanctioned pandemic shelter.

The arrival of a front-end loader and Hamilton police outside the rink Friday morning briefly spurred consternation among some homeless residents who said they were braced for a clear-out" effort by the city.

But tent campers were not asked to leave - at least not yet.

Instead, workers shovelled larger items like couches, shopping carts and disassembled bicycles into two city trucks along with any food waste and trash. The cleanup, the second in two weeks, was aimed at clearing building exits and any blocked walkways, said city emergency operations director Paul Johnson.

It was still a painful" episode for Mike, 50, who went to get a coffee and came back to find the cleanup underway. He had to rescue his mattress out of the back of a half-full city truck.

It sucks, because I lost the rest of my stuff (outside the tent)," he said wearily, sitting in the shade of the arena as other tent campers proactively swept around tents and pushed bikes away from the York Boulevard sidewalk.

Mike, who didn't want to give a last name, expressed fear he would be cleared out" of the downtown site before hooking up with an outreach worker who has offered to help find him subsidized housing. I just want a real house to live in, same as you," he said.

Mike said he has been rousted out of encampments three times since the pandemic began, including at the former Sir John A. Macdonald school, a site near Ferrie Street East and Jackie Washington park. He is wary of sleeping in city shelters for fear of theft.

Outreach groups have appealed to the city to stop dismantling tent encampments on public land during COVID-19, arguing in letters to the board of health that dispersing homeless residents will sever links to outreach workers and doctors.

The city has not agreed to leave encampments in place on city land indefinitely. But staff have vowed to always send outreach teams in advance to try to hook up residents with temporary or permanent housing before emptying a site.

Lisa Nussey, an organizer with harm reduction outreach group Keeping Six, said volunteers were on hand Friday to try to help tent campers clean up, protect belongings - and watch to ensure no one was forced to leave.

Nussey said she warned officials heavy machinery" could spur consternation among tent campers - but she also gave credit to the city crew for working co-operatively" with volunteers to try to minimize losses for homeless campers.

She said the group will continue to push the city to temporarily sanction" outdoor encampments on public land at least during the pandemic.

Board of health members voted this week to ask for a report on how the city is dealing with homeless encampments.

A group of lawyers and advocates have also raised the possibility of legal action if the city decides to continue tearing down encampments. The City of Toronto currently faces a lawsuit over COVID-19 safety for homeless residents.

Matthew Van Dongen is a Hamilton-based reporter covering transportation for The Spectator. Reach him via email: mvandongen@thespec.com