At the encampment on 95 Street and Rowland Road in central Edmonton, Roy Cardinal is known as the caretaker.
He has made his tent into a small teepee. Inside, he has small propane fireplace, beds and blankets. He has made it as comfortable as possible.
“It’s a tight squeeze, but it’s the warmest place in the house,” Cardinal said.
“I sit here, and I give them coffee, all the donations and everything we get, I always keep it in here.”
Cardinal puts his focus on helping people recover from addictions. Right now, he is grieving his friend Shay who recently died from an overdose. He says Shay called him uncle and looked at him like a father.
“She was always alone living in the ravine, being a hermit. I brought her out of that shell. She was off the drug totally, and she went out … Just one night of fun and they called me outside to (her tent) … and I thought they were kidding,” Cardinal said.
“She was all purple and I could tell she was really gone.”
Cardinal wiped away tears. He said Shay was one day away from being able to get into housing after being on the waiting list for years.
Cardinal has lived at the encampment for months, but now an eviction looms as the city and Edmonton police are set to dismantle the site soon.
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“Adjusting again, all over again,” he said.
“They are saying we are no different than cockroaches.”
The City of Edmonton and police have dismantled several high-risk encampments since Dec. 29. The winter has been relatively mild, but now people who live in tents are stressing it’s safe and being displaced as temperatures dip put them in bigger danger.
Jessica Meeds said the eviction couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“(I’m) very worried. I know so many people are going to freeze to death,” she said.
The sites can only be dismantled if there is enough shelter space for the people who will be displaced.
Meeds doesn’t want to go to a shelter and many staying at this encampment don’t either. She doesn’t want to lose all of her things.
“I can at least have my stuff. I still have the stuff I had a month ago,” Meeds said.
“It may just look like a tent to people but inside that tent is a home, how everyone else has a home.”
More importantly, she doesn’t want to lose the sense of community she has by going to another encampment or a shelter.
“You take that away from somebody, you take their whole world away.
“This is all we got.”
Meeds said some of the more caring and kind people she’s ever met are homeless.
“I want people to know we are good people. You can come talk to us anytime. We will accept you. We’re not bad. These people made sure I was OK.”
As a polar vortex moves in, bringing dangerously low temperatures, neither Meeds nor Cardinal know where they will go, but they hope officials will find a better alternative than eviction.