A group of people who’ve been living out of tents on the lawn of a West Broadway church are moving on.
On Wednesday, they were asked to pack their belongings and leave.
The tent city popped at All Saints’ Anglican Church on Broadway Street last month.
READ: Homeless seek safety on All Saints Anglican Church Grounds
At the time, Reverend Brent Neumann said there were between 35-40 people camped out.
Some are homeless or struggling with mental health issues and drug addiction.
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“What we’ve seen is not only an escalation of people who are needing to have a place to stay, but they are also indicating that they’ve become high risk in other areas,” Neumann said.
With a wedding scheduled Saturday, the church decided this week the campers had to go.
READ MORE: Osborne Village experiencing a ‘homeless takeover’
Terry Johnsen was packing up his belongings Wednesday. He was one of the first campers to pitch a tent on the lawn.
“It was all to just keep warm,” Johnsen said, “that’s all it was for a while. Then it started slowly growing and then a lot of other people needed a place to camp.”
He told Global News he wasn’t sure where they were going to go.
All Saints’ said the eviction isn’t permanent and that the campers would have the option to return after the weekend, but also said in the future they would only be allowed to stay overnight.
“There are things we can do and a lot of things we can’t do,” Neumann said. “As an organization, we realized we can no longer keep it here. The government agencies are doing everything they can but they can only do so much and we can only do so much. It’s beyond all of us.”
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