‘It looks like a dump’: Legion members frustrated by nearby homeless camps

Members of an Edmonton legion say they have had enough with homeless camps that have popped up behind their building.

Ernie Fedak, president of the Norwood Legion, says the camps have been around for several years.

The city and police have helped dismantle them several times he said, but the camps keep popping back up.

“It’s very frustrating,” Fedak said.

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“The various departments involved with removing it have showed up and cleaned it up. But no sooner have they cleaned up that they appear again. I’m just hoping to see them gone.”

The camps are filled with items such as mattresses, baby strollers and propane tanks. But more concerning for legion members are pill bottles and syringe caps left on the ground.

“It could be dangerous if someone is cleaning up to get pricked by one of these needles,” Fedak said.

Danny Bourgeois is a member of the legion said the mess is an eyesore.

“It looks like a dump down there. It’s ugly,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It looks like a dump down there. It's ugly," he said.

Bourgeois said the residual effects of the camps are acts of vandalism, such as on the legion’s fence and shed. He said there are also concerns about safety.

“Some staff who work here, they are ladies; they leave late at night, sometimes at 11 o’clock. They don’t want to leave on their own,” he said.

Even Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht is chiming in on the issue.

“Is it a good use of police resources? I would say no. Is it something our folks are doing? Yes, largely to maintain the safety of city workers that are dismantling it,” he said.

“Is there an increase? Absolutely. We are seeing a lot more of it.”

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Don Belanger, the co-chair of the city’s Homeless on Public Lands Steering Committee, said there is no accurate count of the city’s homeless camps because the numbers can be very fluid.

He said the city dismantles four or five camps every day and that it understands that camps will sometimes pop back up.

“We’ll go in and do our cleanup and unfortunately we’ve created another area where another camp can be set up. That’s exactly what happens in a lot of cases,” he said.

“It’s a never-ending cycle.”

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But Belanger is urging residents to have patience. He said city staff first check on a camp to see if it is unoccupied and inactive. If so, the site is placed on a list for cleanup and trained staff are called in to help.

If the sites are occupied, they are turned over to a street outreach program where staff visit occupants and try to line them up with social services.

“The City of Edmonton believes in a balanced approach in this complex issue. We don’t just simply clean up camps. We also have to deal with some of the social needs of the occupants,” Belanger said.

“We approach it from the standpoint of trying to work with the homeless to get them into a stable environment and also from the standpoint we want to get our river valley clean and safe.”

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Residents who want to report a site are asked to call 311.