Residents, advocates try to put pieces back together after homeless camp removed

Regina City Hall was back open for business Monday morning, but things weren’t exactly back to normal.

Fencing with large “No Trespassing” signs blocked off the lawns in front of City Hall, with the only opening a front walkway to get into the building from Victoria Avenue.

On Friday afternoon, police moved in to tear down a homeless camp that had been growing in front of City Hall for weeks.

The Ministry of Social Services said it had extra services on site on Thursday and Friday when it got word that the camp was going to be decommissioned. It said in a statement that it “mobiliz(ed) all available resources” to connect people to services like food, transportation and shelter.

The ministry said 70 people were connected to emergency shelter options, which included shelter spaces and detox services, but also friends and family. The ministry said it also created emergency shelter spaces.

People were also sent to hotels; the ministry said it made arrangements for additional hotel rooms for the weekend, including around 30 in Regina and seven in Balgonie. But it also said that not all rooms were used and people who weren’t from the camp were also supported in hotels.

The statement said the ministry was covering transportation costs for people to go to the Social Services office in Regina.

Advocates had warned there would be more problems in other parts of the city as the camp residents dispersed.

On Monday morning, the Regina Police Service didn’t say whether there was an increase in calls over the weekend, saying there would be no way to determine whether numbers would be attributable to the former camp residents or not.

Regina Fire and Protective Services said the weekend was fairly typical for calls and it couldn’t say whether any of the calls it did get were attributable to people who had been at the City Hall camp.

At least one makeshift tent had been erected with tarps next to the YWCA building just across the street from City Hall, while another person appeared to have set up their own camp on a lawn a block away.

On Thursday, Regina’s fire chief, Layne Jackson, said the camp would be decommissioned within 24 hours due to an “imminent risk” to the safety of the camp’s inhabitants as well as others. The fire department had extinguished three fires in a five-day span, prompting Jackson’s announcement.

Police officers moved in Friday afternoon and, by 4 p.m., the inhabitants of the camp had been moved off the courtyard.

As of Friday evening, 11 people had been arrested during the police operation to take down the camp. According to the city, there were 83 tents on the grounds of City Hall at the height of the camp.