Makowsky says help is being offered at Regina homeless camp

Where the terrace in front of Regina City Hall used to be all cement and fountains, now it’s tents and people who have nowhere else to stay.

The homeless encampment in front of City Hall started a few weeks ago and has grown to several dozen tents since then.

According to the province’s social services minister, Gene Makowsky, ministry workers have been in and around the camp since early on. At first, there was staff there every day.

“There wasn’t a lot of uptake, unfortunately, and that continues to be the case in terms of services offered. They’ve been declined for the most part,” Makowsky said Thursday.

Makowsky couldn’t say why people were refusing help, noting that they don’t tend to give long answers, but he said there could be many reasons why.

“It’s sort of a scenario where they are asked if they’d like any help from the ministry and it’s just a ‘no,’ ” said Makowsky.

Alejandra Cabrera, who volunteers at the camp, said many people are dealing with barriers to getting help, such as complex needs. That’s why they often don’t have housing in the first place.

“A lot of these people have some trauma, substance abuse, mental health – all sorts of things that we need to address,” she explained.

Other advocates on social media have also talked about barriers like a requirement of having official identification, which can be difficult to get for a person with no fixed address, or some shelters requiring a fee depending on the situation.

Makowsky said Regina police have warned that ministry workers shouldn’t be going through the encampment and into tents without an escort for safety reasons, so social services workers are now set up just inside City Hall on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Cabrera described it as the social workers being “tucked away” in City Hall.

“They continue this divide of the housed and the unhoused and they need to stop doing that. I don’t know if they’ll ever get around to doing actual work for people that are not in a privileged position,” she said.

Those who have accepted help from the ministry have been offered things like help to get onto income assistance. Some people have been put into temporary shelter in hotels and then referred to Regina Housing to find more permanent shelter.

Regina Mayor Sandra Masters addressed the encampment during a media conference Wednesday, suggesting the city wouldn’t be able to take down the tent city without safely ensuring that those who are staying there had a place to go.

“I think that’s what all of the organizations are working through right now, kind of the if/then scenarios, because if we have somewhere (where folks can go), that’s easy,” she said. “If we don’t, how do we accommodate short-term shelter while we work through what to do with folks that don’t perhaps want shelter?”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Daniel Reech